This Months retro Video Game purchases:October 2015

OK so it is that time of the month again, the time when one month is almost over and a new one is about to begin, so its is once again time look at the retro purchases I have made. Last month I had a few things that were more important than games like my fiancées birthday, this month I haven't really had any financial obligations and yet I don't really think I got very much game wise. I guess this is because a lot of the time I have been sitting on my hands trying to save cash to take care of Christmas and I even brought some of the presents I need to buy largely because I hate rushing around at the last minute. I do realise that this is very list like and some might find it a bit dry and boring compared to my reviews but I know that some people do enjoy this kind of thing and it also serves me as a reminder of when I am maybe spending a little too much on my hobby.

I didn't actually make my first purchase until Monday the 5th of October and then they were not the most retro of games being as they were Wii titles. I got Donkey Kong Jet race and Donkey Kong jungle beat for £5 both of them boxed and complete from a pawn store. Jet Race was one of those games that I always wanted to get but also figured I would find average at best, I more wanted to get it for the collection than to play so wanted to wait for a low price. I also I ordered a Japanese boxed copy of Fire Pro Wrestling for the SNES for £5 including postage which turned up a few days latter.

The following day I did my rounds of the local charity shops and managed to find a few original Xbox games boxed and complete with good condition discs for £1 each. I got Enter the Matrix, WWE Raw, Max Payne. Desert Storm, Ghost Recon, and RobotWars Extreme Destruction. So nothing that impressive although having owned WWE Raw before I have to admit to having a soft spot for it. I also ordered an American SNES cart of Family feud for £3 including postage, which if you read this blog you will see I have already reviewed as part of my SNES review series, this is pretty much the only reason I got it, but my other half did spend a good few hours playing it and enjoyed it far more than me.

On the 8th I got a few PSP games today all fully boxed with manuals for £1.29 each, these were Avatar the Game, ScarFace and Marvel Ultimate alliance. The following day I got a Japanese SNES cart All Star Dream Slam (Women's wrestling) which cost me £3 and in all honesty beyond seeing it turn on I haven't even played it yet and I fully intended to play it as soon as it arrived.

On the 10th I got Bass Masters Classic for the SNES NTSC American boxed (but with no manual) for £5 postage included and Corporation for the Megadrive for £2 (again including post) cart only arrive in the post and then two days latter I got Zero Tolerance for megadrive boxed complete for £3 and Talmit's Adventure for megadrive just the cart for £2 (again this was through the post and postage was included).

On october the 13th I walked in to Grainger games after work and grabbed a few PSP games, Undead Knights complete for £5, dungeon siege throne of agony complete for £3, Monster Hunter freedom 2 for £2 and Key of Heaven for psp £1

On the 15th I had one of those strange situations where I was almost sure I owned a game from my childhood and then upon realising I didn't decided that I really really needed it, hence I ended up buying Wrestle War for the Megadrive complete for £4, at the same time I picked up the Gameboy game and watch gallery cart for £1

The following day I got a copy of Thunder Force 2 for the Megadrive which had the cart and the box but was missing the manual for £8, this and the above Wrestle War were two of the things I was happiest to get this month. At the same time I also got Dogs life for the playstation 2 complete for 50pence, Dexters labratory Mandarks Lab? for the PS1 Complete for £1, Tomb raider legend disc and case for psp for 30pence, Tomb raider anniversary for psp complete 30pence, Medal of honour heroes 2 disc and case for psp for 30pence and Harry Potter and the goblet of fire complete for the psp for £1.

On the 23rd I got Top gear Rally for the N64 , cart, manual and a very flat box for £3, Dick Tracy for the Megadrive Case and Cart (No manual) for £4, Ghost recon 2 for the psp complete for £1 and Worms open warfare 2 for the psp complete for £1. The following day I got Pit Fighter for gamebiy just the cart for 99pence (Yes I do know its going to be awful, sometimes I just like to see how bad for myself) and Sonic Unleashed complete for the wii for £2.99 again its one of those games I wanted to get but not pay much for due to its somewhat ropey reviews.

On the 27th I Spent £14 on the following complete PSP Games, 300 March to glory (Two copies),world tour soccer 2, X-men legends 2 rise of apocalypse, Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters (Platinum re-release),medal of honour heroes, sega megadrive collection, Aliens vs predator requiem, Star Wars Battlefront 2. I got them as a single purchase from a seller who just wanted a set price to get rid of everything but I figured it was a fair price so didnt quibble or start asking if I could just have this or that.

My last purchase was on the 28th and was in fact from Game. I tend to go in mostly to see if they have any PSP or Wii things that are cheap and in this case due to there 3 for 2 offer I got 3 complete Wii games for £9. I got Medal of Honour heroes 2, Battalion wars 2 and Obscure 2. In honesty I really wanted Obscure 2 because I have the first one on the xbox and despite it not being perfect I enjoy it and wanted to get the second on something, it was £5 and the other two games were £4 each so I just grabbed something as it felt silly just to get the one thing and miss out, yep I guess its the old 3 for 2 deal and I was roped in but I don't feel bad about it.

I know there is still 1 day left in the month but its Halloween and I intend to watch lots of horror not buy games. On the other front I have really held off buying any actual new games and have instead made myself play retro games and Xbox One games I haven't finished yet. It was a very PSP heavy month and I think that will proberbly be something that starts winding down, I am seeing less and less of it and I have no real intention of popping large amounts of cash on buying obscure psp games I don't already own, although there are a few RPG's I wouldnt mind getting if I see them for the right price.

Still if my adding is right that means I spent £103.25 on retro games this month, which is around £26 a week, it might sound bad but I don't drink, smoke or take drugs so I guess my money could be being spent on far worse vices.

SNES Review 101: Tiny Toons Wacky Sports

It’s not so long ago that I reviewed the SNES platformer Buster Busts loose a platformer based on the cartoon Tiny Toon Adventures made by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and Warner Bros. So I will try not to spend to long going on about this being a licensed game and where the license came from as I am reviewing another Tiny Toons related game.  Over here (and in the rest of Europe) the game I am reviewing was called Tiny Toon Adventures: Wild & Wacky Sports in the American markets it was called Tiny Toon Adventures: Wacky Sports Challenge and in Japan it was known as Tiny Toon Adventures: Dotabata Daiundoukai. It was released in 1994 for the Super NES and was once again both developed and published by Konami.

So this is a license but once again it’s a license being made by Konami who we must remember back in the SNES days could more or less do no wrong they were one of the prize producers for the machine making hit after hit. Also in case you haven’t guessed by the Wacky sports name this game is basically a quirky game featuring lots of little sort of ‘’sports’’ based events and as most people will know Konami were responsible for one of the most well-known multi sports games of all time Track & Field( or Hyper Olympics as it was known in Japan).

For those not familiar with Track and field it had very simple gameplay, based on quick repeating button presses, but what it really managed to do was to open the flood gates and set the basics down in stone for a whole bunch of games that would follow it, it was essentially the start of the multi sports button bashing sub-genre. It laid down all of the basic ideas that would go on to be seen in this type of game. The NES version of Track and Field was very well-received, and also sold well. Surprisingly Konami did not make a proper direct SNES follow up instead they would wait until the N64 which would get International Track & Field 2000 (as well as a winter Olympics based game which worked in much the same way).

Now personally I see this as a kind of crazy off shot of the Track and Field series, yes it can be a bit silly and a bit kiddy but it is a very fun party type game that is great fun when played with a second player but it’s also worth noting that it's one of the few SNES games to support the SNES Multitap , and if you have one of these and enough pads then four of  you can play against each other at the same time.

So to start with if you’re playing on your own you choose a Tiny Toon from Buster, Babs, Plucky, or Dizzy and then you go through a bunch of wacky events and compete for the gold. It's kind of like Track and Field but with Tiny Toon characters and less obvious sporting events. There is a big variety in the events and there all wacky. There are around twelve events, I won’t list all of them for you, but here is a quick sample to show you the kind of things you will be doing, there is weightlifting, the chicken dash, bungee jumping and ice cream throwing.

The way to win is basically to score the most points, if you’re playing on your own then the computer will take control of the other tiny toons. Hampton the pig will tell you the rules of each event before they start. After the event the points gets calculated and you find out who has won that event and who has come second and so on. Once you have completed all of the events for your current game the overall winners are announced and you will get to see who has won the Bronze, Silver and Gold medal.

The main drawback with this game is that once you get the hang of most events well it really is not too hard to beat the computer, the game soon becomes boring as a one player game however grab a  friend or hopefully three and this just see’s the fun ramp up.

Unusually for a game of this type there is actually a story. Montana Max who if you haven’t seen the show can basically be described as a super-rich brat, think richy rich but a wanker, well for some reason probably the fact he is bored has decided to hold a sports contest with weird events. As a prize Max has offered a Million to the winner and each of the 4 competitors has their eyes on the money because they each have an individual dream that they need it for, if you want to find out if there dream comes true or not then you will need to pick that person and finish the game.

Both the sound effects and music fit the game well, there are cartoon boing noises when someone messes up for example. The music is nothing you are really going to listen to outside of the game but it does fit its purpose well, for example the music during the races has the right kind of beat to it to get you in the mood to work like mad to try to win. The sounds are clear and feel like they were taken directly from the cartoon, the theme tune is also used even though it is without lyrics obviously. The graphics in this game are nice and bright, they are pretty good for the SNES and look and feel a lot like those seen in Buster Busts Loose, these two games certainly can sit side by side as good companion pieces when you think about the fact there made by the same company, for the same machine and feature the same cast. The graphics and sounds together certainly help set the mood for this game and make it feel a lot like the show it is based on.

So I have gone through almost everything, what kind of a game this is, its story, the sound and graphics so that leaves the one most important thing and that’s how the game plays. In my opinion the controls are nice and easy, they are all explained to you prior to the events. The characters all play exactly the same which is no bad thing as it means no one is in any way at a disadvantage well not unless they have ended up with the last pad you have left in four player mode and it happens to be a awful 3^rd party piece of tat (Let’s face it back in the SNES days this was a situation you would often find yourself in, popping round someone’s house for a game, being the last one there and having to nurse your way through a game or two with a crappy pad, and even if you did get one of the good pads you’d have to put up with the moans of the poor soul who didn’t)

The controls are good and responsive but like a lot of games of this type you better darn well have strong thumbs because during some of the events you will find yourself having to batter two buttons as fast as you possibly can in order to win, there is also the argument that if you get in to this with some real gusto then your probably not doing your pads buttons any big favours. That's if you want to win and get a very high score.

This is one of those games which I think it is a little hard to rate, after all you have to look at the game in two ways, you have to look at it as a single player game and a multiplayer. As a single player game it’s a fun little distraction but you will soon tire of it, and to this degree it is a little hard to seriously recommend it. If however you own a multi-tap and enough decent pads and regularly have friends around who enjoy playing 16bit games with you then this is an ace title to slap on in the middle of a gaming night, few rounds of bomberman, some Mario kart, followed by winner stays on street fighter and then chuck this on for a while before moving on to something like NBA Jam and it will be fun all round. I think I would give this game a 7 out of 10 but I only recommend it for purchase as a multiplayer title. So if you want this game how much are you looking at paying? Well the average price for a loose cart version of it tends to go for between £15 to £20 and there is very little saving to be made in going for an import copy, it’s not cheap and if you’re going to be playing it on your own its simply not worth it, but as a multiplayer game I think it’s worth it. What did I pay? Well my fiancé got it me along with Cool Spot, Asterix and ClayMates for the awesome price of £23, so I have to thank her for this one.

The Early years of the WWE Hall of Fame

So here is a quick look at the early years of the WWE Hall of Fame.

So what is the WWE Hall of Fame well put simply it is a hall of fame for professional wrestling personalities maintained by WWE. Or to put it more simply its a list of people who it is felt have had a major impact on the WWE brand and company.

It was first mentioned and officially created on the March 22nd 1993 episode of Monday Night Raw. André the Giant, had died around about two months prior to this, and he was announced as the sole inductee.I don't think there is really anyone who would debate whether the Giant deserved his place in the hall,so he was certainly a good starting point. He was a Posthumous inductee as it was held after his death, there was no actual ceremony but a Video was made and shown to announce his induction and celebrate his career, a career which included an undefeated streak lasting nearly 15 years, as well as being both a former WWE Champion and WWE Tag Team champion.

The 1994 and 1995 ceremonies were held in conjunction with the annual King of the Ring pay-per-view events. The 1994 ceremony saw the following added to the hall, Arnold Skaaland, Bobo Brazil, "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers, Chief Jay Strongbow, "Classy" Freddie Blassie, Gorilla Monsoon and James Dudley. Now I wont talk about all of these in turn as I would be here all day and a lot of them are either before my time or I know of them for there other work, for example I know Gorilla Monsoon for his stint as a WWF announcer and on-screen President rather than for his actual in ring career, all of them with the exception of Buddy Rogers were alive at the time of there induction.

The 1995 ceremony saw the induction of stars such as Antonino Rocca, "Big Cat" Ernie Ladd, George "The Animal" Steele, Ivan Putski, The Fabulous Moolah, The Grand Wizard, and Pedro Morales. Again a lot of these wrestlers were before my time, with the only one I really hold a lot of memories and affection for being the lovable monster heel character of George The Animal Steele. The year is proberbly most worthy of note for being the first time a Woman found her way in to the WWE Hall of fame.

In 1996, the Hall of Fame ceremony was held with the Survivor Series event that year. This year would see "Baron" Mikel Scicluna, "Captain" Lou Albano, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, The Valiant Brothers (the first tag team to go into the hall) Johnny Rodz, Killer Kowalski, Pat Patterson, and Vincent J. McMahon AKA McMahon Senior. Captain Lou Albano was obviously very well known particularly as a manager and many kids will know him as being the real life Mario who featured at the start and end of episodes of the Super Mario Bros Super show. Jimmy Snuka will also most likly be known because of firstly the fact that he achieved super fame in the company and has kept popping up again and again but also unfortunatly because of the fact that he is currently facing a court case in relation to a death around 20 years ago. This makes it the first year in which we have a super star entering the hall who will latter be removed from it in at least some capacity (As of September 2015, Jimmy Snuka's profile is no longer in the Hall of Fame section at WWE.com. However, this does not necessarily mean that Snuka has been removed from the WWE Hall of Fame completely as no statement has been made by WWE yet in regards to this, nor do we know if one ever will be).

So there we have the first 4 years of the Hall of Fame and by my reckoning around the first 22 people to enter it. At this point it felt like the Hall of Fame would just keep going, getting bigger and bigger but suprisingly it stopped being mentioned and no new blood would be inducted in to it until 2004. None of these early ceremonies were televised with the exception of the video made to induct Andre.

So is the Hall of Fame a real physical thing or is it just a list, well technically a building has never been built to represent/house the Hall of Fame, although I have heard that WWE has looked into constructing this kind of thing, however In 2008, Shane McMahon, who was at the time Executive Vice President of WWE, stated that they had been storing wrestling memorabilia in a warehouse for years, with all items categorized and dated in case a real Hall was ever made. Now while I am very glad to hear that they are at least storing significant items its a shame we dont get to see them. I would argue that if they cant or do not at present want to create a real physical hall then maybe the next best thing would be a virtual hall of fame, let us see and virtually interact with this pieces of wrestling memrobelia, photo them from every angle and let us virtually turn them around and study them while reading about the greats that they are connected to, this way if they are ever lost or damaged they will live on in this way.

The Monster Club was a film which I had always believed to be a late possibly final instalment in Amicus studios portmanteau series (there horror anthology series), however it wasnt it just feels like one, it in fact was made by a production comapny called Sword and Socery Productions and is one of only two films made by them.. Now I have talked about horror anthology films on several occasions because of some of them featuring either actors from Doctor Who or stories taken from EC comics or in one case both. This film features neither of these things but it does feature Vincent Price one of my favourite actors of all time, besides I love this style of film so much that is more than enough reason to dive in to another one.

The wrap around story to the film is about a horror writer called R.Chetwynd-Hayes played by John Carradine who happens to meet a Vampire named Erasmus played by the one and only Vincent Price .Erasmus  takes his fill of the authors blood but after recognizing him becomes all apologetic and reveals himself to be a fan of the man's work. He tells the writer that he feels he owes him something and so invites him to The Monster Club mentioning that it might be a good way for the author to find some new ideas for hie next book.

Arriving at the club we are met with what can best be described as sort of a horror version of the StarWars Cantina, there are all sorts of different monsters walking about while an 80's band play songs about Monsters, it is a touch cheesy admittedly but then something happens which I think is absolutely wonderful.Vincent Prices character starts to talk about Monsters but more than this he starts to talk about Monsters Cross breading, what would happen if one type of monster was to breed with another. It is like one of those childhood conversations you would have with your friends you know what would happen if Dracula sunk his fangs into the wolf-man etcetera but here we have horror Legend Vincent Price talking us through monster cross-breads and cross-breads of cross-breads its a really interesting idea which I wish more films would return to.


This is a brilliant lead in to the first story in this anthology, as the story is about one of these cross-breads. In this story we have a relatively  young couple George and Angela who answer an advertisement in a newspaper. The add is looking for someone to take on the role as a cataloguer of antiques in an old manor.Angela goes and meets the owner who seems somewhat strange. Angerla is scared at first but soon settles in to her job in fact she soon seems to become friendly with her soft spoken and thoughtful employer. He is shown to be scared of the world outside of his manor, but he has a very soft and gentle side shown in the way he feeds and befriends the birds who visit him. Angela keeps saying to her partner George that she can not steel from this man but he keeps pressuring her to do just that. Eventually the kind seeming man tells her he is a Shadmock,(a Vampire/werewolf hybrid) and that he would like her to marry him. I wont spoil how this tale plays out but I like it, I like it for the hybrid monster, but more than that I like it because you never really see him as a monster, he is portrayed as kind and sensitive while it is the humans in the tale scheming and thinking about stealing.

The second story is about a young boy, a young boy whose dad just so happens to be a Vampire who is stalking his human prey on the London underground while being chased by a squad of Vampire hunters called the B-squad  lead by a man called Pickering played by Donald Pleasance (Doctor Lumis from Halloween). The boy doesn't know that his father is a Vampire, he thinks that his dad works at night and that this is why he sleeps during the night. At school he is teased and bullied for being a pale and wimpy child and Pickering witnessing this uses the boy to lead him and his team right to his Vampire father.

The first story is kind of sad, the second story although having its sad side with the child being bullied tends to end up being a little silly, neither of them are scary in any way shape or form. Add to this the music in-between the stories and a brilliant vibrant performance by Vincent Price and although not scary the film is pretty darn wonderful but I have to say it is after this that things get even better.

The third story is about an American movie Director scouting the English countryside to try and find  the perfect location for his upcoming movie. He finds a place on a map which no one has considered and decides to take a look himself. What he finds is a primitive town one that seems to be not only covered in fog but feel like it is from the past. It turns out that the people there are all Ghouls apart from a young girl he befriends who is a Humghoul (a Human and ghoul hybrid) the story is about his effort to escape and take her with him. The Ghouls are interesting, the story is well told and it feels different, there is a bit where he finds the notes of a man who took a ghoul in and bathed it and tried to show it kindness and who is asking god in return why this kindness was repaid with more pain and suffering for the village. I wont spoil the end but this is by far my favourite story.

After this there is a bit more Vincent Price, in particular he gives a speak which I would love to repeat here but I feel you need to hear him say the words, to experience his delivery of it to truly see how great it is. Single handedly he sums up though why humans are far more terrifying than any type of monster that has ever been dreamed up. The in between segments with Price and Carradine are  full of very bad monster make-up and  music which is very much a product of its time. Some people would argue that its a shame to see these two great horror legends working with this kind of material but the truth is they make a lot out of what there is, In some ways I would have preferred to see Price take centre stage in a great story within the anthology but here in this part he shows that he can give interesting speeches and explanations which make you forget about any low budget effects and what is more he seems to get in to the spirit of it all and really enjoys himself.

I would give the film an 8 out of 10, its a nice silly bit of fun which has a deeper message held inside it, yes it is cheesy at points and silly but it is also a lot of fun has some great performances in it and some brilliant ideas, I wish films like this were still around, I wish horror anthologies were still regularly made and that companies like Amicus were still around or that the company who made this had at least had a few more bashes at it.

On my Soap Box: Germaine Greer, her opinion on Trans people and my opinion on this

Now most of the time I talk about Games and Horror, sometimes I slip in to talking about politics, morality or life issues but I am aware that maybe this bores some of my readers here looking for more entertainment based discussion. I work in a rather regular job but I do have a lot of education, an education which includes a Degree in social sciences and a high qualification in childcare. I have studied Politics, Philosophy, Business studies, Psychology, Sociology and although I no longer study any of them I still go back and read my old books and I also try to keep myself somewhat up to date.

Yet here I find myself more or less at the release of Halo 5 a admittedly important release about to talk about the comments of a Feminist. You see when I was a student I read a lot of books, learned about a great many thinkers in a great many fields. There were certain people or issues who grasped me more than others though and amongst them was feminism. Now its important to note that I am a man, a straight male both in body and mind so according to some this is not something I should worry myself over as I am part of the problem not the solution and any help I could give is to some unwanted and not needed. Still I found the work of many writers in this field to be fascinating and eye opening, obviously like everything I studied some of it made more sense to me or appealed to me more than other bits but there were big names in the field which over the years we kept going back to again and again.

For what it is worth Charlotte Perkins Gilman was probably the feminist whose writing I enjoyed the most. The reason for this is that I liked her style, she wrote some novels which although were fantasy in nature they were also filled with themes and questions which really stopped you and made you think. I would advise anyone with a passing interest who wants an easy yet thought provoking read to try her book Herland. I would argue that the central theme of Herland is defining gender. It looks at gender roles, at how gender is a how social construct. In the story a small band of men go on an adventure and find a land where there are only women, women who In comparison to the women of their world,appear to be a little more masculine. These women have short functional hair, they are physically strong they are very different to what these men are used to. There is a sort of double side to this though, one of the men can be seen as displaying some stereotypical feminine traits. As one of only four male students on a Social Sciences degree course amongst a good few hundred females, as a man who cares very deeply, a man who wanted to work with children and who would go on to be a single father to his daughter I guess this was something I could relate to I guess there were some caring instincts in me that others would see as being feminine attributes.

Still I digress another one of the big names we would constantly come back to in class was a certain Germaine Greer a woman who is regarded as one of the major voices of the second-wave feminist movement. Greer's ideas have often created controversy ever since her first book, The Female Eunuch. In brief she can be described as a liberation rather than equality feminist. Her goal is not equality with men, but women's liberation which according to her writing means embracing sex differences in a positive fashion, allowing women to ''define their own values, order their own priorities and decide their own fate." Now I am very into letting people be who they want to be, valuing everyone based on there own strengths whatever they might be and ignoring gender type stereotypes but there are still issues I massively disagree with Greer on for one she believes that women should give up monogamy, at my heart I am very pro monogamy and long term relationships because I am a romantic, I don't want a monogamous relationship with my partner to pin her down or own her, I want it because I want to spend my every waking moment with her, I love, admire, respect and adore her without end, if you call this wanting to own her well maybe I do but I want it to go both ways, however I do believe this is a choice and I respect people who make different choices.If you are poly then before you start chanting Greer's name remember she also has claimed to want women to drink there own menstral blood, that female genetial mutilation is ok and that Transgender people are delusional. This is the main reason I started writing this blog post.

On the one hand I have always held some respect for Greer and viewed anything really off she has said under the rule of ''well we all believe something stupid and let our mouths flap when we shouldnt now and then'' but this is the thing that has pushed my annoyance button.

A lot of Feminists will argue that women are treated like crap, but I have seen that if women are treated badly then quiet often transgenderd people are treated super bad. Yet the following quote is from Greer ''Nowadays we are all likely to meet people who think they are women, have women’s names, and feminine clothes and lots of eyeshadow, who seem to us to be some kind of ghastly parody, though it isn’t polite to say so. We pretend that all the people passing for female really are. Other delusions may be challenged, but not a man’s delusion that he is female.''

You see to me what feminism should really be about it should be about respecting differences and recognising that traits can belong to anyone, women can be confident smart and resourceful just as men can be soft tender and caring traits should belong to people not to genders, we are all first and foremost individuals, most importantly though you are who you are on the inside, that is what is important and that is what counts. Greer feels she speaks for the downtrodden woman a type or person who is shit upon and who needs to break out from under the ice of there tomb in society, the truth is though that there are many oppressed and hurt groups suffering, some publicly and some in silence and it is deeply wrong to attack and make fun of another group. I am not young myself but I have to argue that maybe she is just old, stuck in her way and no longer understands the society she lives in, Charlotte Perkins Gilman died around 1935 and I think she had a better grasp of our modern world than Greer will ever have.

Movie Debate: What makes a good sequel?

So what makes a good sequel? While I was looking at all of the Demoni/Demons films and talking about which was a real sequel and which was a sequel in name only I was also trying to review the sequels to a limited extent, I was talking about if they felt like sequels but also if they were in fact good films. This got me thinking that for my next blog post maybe I should talk about what makes a good sequel. Now all of my examples and such will be based around film sequels but a lot of the points made within could also relate to video games or books.

Well an easy place to start would be to name a few really good sequels and then maybe think about what I like about one or two of them. The following are films which for one reason or another I believe are some of the best sequels you can find, not all of them will have a 2 plastered on the end but they are definitely considered real proper official sequels. OK so here is my list Dawn of the dead, The Empire Strikes back, Aliens, Star Trek 2 The Wrath of Kahn. I am not saying that these are the only good sequels or that they are the best but they are all sequels I respect and feel don't disappoint fans of the original.

So taking Aliens as a starting point, what does it take from the original film? Well it takes the character of Riply and it takes the alien creature the Xenomorph, it takes everything you learned and know from the first film about both this woman and this type of monster and then applies them to a new situation. It is definitely a sequel and feels like a sequel because it is the continuing story/adventures of Riply. So what is different? Well the first film was very much a horror film, there was one Alien hence the films title Alien and it basically stalked the crew of a ship the ship was a commercial spacecraft so they were just regular working people with no military training, there were also no real weapons on board with which to defend themselves, where as the Alien with its claws, its large frame, predatory instincts and acid for blood was a born killer. In the sequel Riply becomes the civilian advisor to a team of Colonial Marines basically bad ass soldiers with all of the weapons you could dream of, hand guns, plasma rifles, assault rifles, grenades, body armour, helmet cameras, they are tooled up trained professionals, professionals who would have killed that one lone Alien with very little trouble. The problem is that in this case they are not set against a lone Alien, rather they end up facing a relentless hoard of Aliens, yes they shoot, kill and incinerate lots of Aliens but with everyone they kill more and more just keep coming. It would be hard to call this a horror film like the first one, I would be inclined to think of it more as a Science Fiction Action movie with Elements of horror in it, in fact it kind of feels like a War film at times sort of either a Vietnam movie or one of those old Western fort under siege flicks. Yet this is one of my favourite sequels and that is because it has a strong connection to the original film bringing back both the last survivor and using the same Monster but it also is not afraid to take these set pieces and do something new and interesting with them instead of being just a cash in rehash of what came before.

Star Trek 2 the Wrath of Kahn and The Empire Strikes back are even more obvious than this, they are set in the same world's and feature pretty much all of the main characters from there respective prequels. Yet if we look at Dawn of the Dead the sequel to Night of the living dead there is no central character from the first movie returning to feature in the sequel, all that is returning is the monster, the Zombies.and these guys look a lot different, a lot better really. The first film was in black and white yet this sequel was in colour. The same Director was at the helm of both films and they were both based on his vision which wasn't true in the case of Alien and Aliens, Aliens was more like someone new jumping in to the original guys toy box and playing with the toys in his own way. So you can argue that in one way Dawn is a truer sequel because its by the same Director yet Aliens has a returning lead character, which one matters more? Well that depends on your own personal view, I don't mind somebody new being at the helm, new people can bring new ideas and a fresh perspective but I also don't mind sequels that are set in the same world but don't directly follow a certain persons story, in some cases it can be the world itself which is the central character.

So I guess basically a sequel is a continuation, it can be a continuation of a world story or a persons story or a whole group of peoples stories, it can be any of these things and be a good sequel as long as its good. If its the continuation of a person or a groups story then they don't have to do the exact same thing in the exact same place, if its a continuation of a worlds story it doesn't have to even be set in the same part of that world as the last film. A sequel can even be a part of a slightly different genre, what it has to do though is feel somehow connected and deliver something which will interest those who were interested in the original. Often it is when a sequel is too similar or far too different that it is considered bad, people will moan if something is just a rehash but then they will also moan if it doesn't feel connected at all. I think the best formula would be to take elements of the past but to use them to do either a completely new story or a continuing story which offers your fans something of the old while not overly repeating yourself to the point people might as well just save themselves some cash and watch the original again.

Demons/Demoni and the world of fake Italian horror sequels.

Well seeing as its October and Halloween draws ever closer it might be a good idea to touch on a few more horror related things then right? I could look at any number of films, I could look into other Doctor Who actors and their contributions to the world of horror, or I could look for a lesser known film that happens to have been done by a master of the genre or I could look at a dodgy sequel that doesn’t live up to the promising original film it follows

Well instead of any of that I am going to talk about the sort of sequels which exist in relation to various Italian Horror films.

Now most places will only call something a sequel if it actually is a continuation from a previous film but the Italians seem to often slap a well-known name on to what can best be thought of as a bastard sequel. A film that has no or very little true connection to the film it has been named after. As a youngster I used to watch films in a very passive manner, I would walk in to the local video shop and pick up the boxes, turn them over in my hands read the title and whatever description was on a box and make my choice based on that, if the film said it was Zombie flesh eaters 2 it was Zombie flesh eaters 2. This is how things pretty much remained until the internet for me at least. Sure from time to time I had thought well that film seemed to have sod all to do with the one before it, but I never gave it much thought beyond that. Along came the internet and all of a sudden there were whispers of this and that I think a moment that really interested me in it was when the Angry Video Game Nerd James Rolf did a video called Chronologically Confused about Sequel Titles. In this he talked about topics such as the weird way in which some sequel films are numbered but others are not. In this video he touched on the Zombie/Zombie Flesh eaters films and how the titles came about. Yeah he only briefly talked about this but it interested me, it made me read up on these films and in doing so I learned about other Italian horror sort of sequels.

This is when I learned that when it comes to Italian horror there is more than one type of sequel. The first kind of sequel is just what you would expect, it is a film which focuses on the original source material, the movie it is following and actually tries to be a legitimate follow up to its predecessor. The second is a sequel in name alone.it diverges from the original often being made by a different production team and/or studio yet it is made with the name of the early film attached from the very start usually as an attempt to stay true to the feel of the original film even if it is not really connected. Then, of course, there is the third type of sequel. This sequel will have no reference to the original, is a sequel in name only and was named as a sequel latter on solely to capitalize on the success of the movie it is piggybacking on.

Now there is the risk that a name might lead you to watch a film you wouldn’t otherwise watch, you might find yourself watching something which doesn’t feel like it has any connection at all to the film that brought you to it. Yes this can be a good thing because it can introduce you to something new and a little different but it can also leave you feeling cheated. I am sure that somewhere out there you would be able to find a complete list of every sort of sequel and all I can say is bravo to the man that has done that, but it’s not what I will be doing. That is main course style material, I consider this post more of a taster for the slightly interested. I also think it’s important to mention that just because something might be a ‘’fake’’ sequel this doesn’t mean that taken on its own as a piece of film that it is a bad movie and to be honest I find the whole smoke and mirrors aspect of this just as fascinating as the best films of this genre.

So today I am going to talk about  Demoni aka Demons and its various sort of sequels. Now the original Demons is a film directed by Lamberto Bava, produced and part written by Dario Argento. Now if I was to score this film or review it well let’s just say I would be giving it a rave review. I love it, it truly is an awesome film. It’s about Demons but you can more or less basically think about it as a zombie type movie, the demons bite and scratch people and pass on an infection/steal your soul in this way. The plot in its most basic form is that a group of people get free tickets to the screening of a horror movie, once they are there all hell breaks loose when someone becomes a demon everyone gets trapped in the movie theatre and the problem just grows from here. With every person who is killed popping up as another possessed demon it is one of those films were people battle just to stay alive, certain characters will grow on you and you’ll be eager for them to make it or be sad to see them pass away.

There is one direct true sequel to the original, 1985 classic. It occurs several years after the original and doesn’t follow on directly or focus on any character from the last one. Basically the demons strike again but this time in a large apartment building, they are without a doubt the same kind of demons, they pretty much look the same, they act the same basically because it was intended to be a sequel and both producer Dario Argento and director Lamberto Bava and others from the production team are involved in it. The return of said team seems to have kept cohesion in more than just movie feel and plot continuity. There is a completely new cast of human characters though but in a nice touch the actor Bobby Rhodes who was fantastic in the original as a Pimp, is in this film as a body builder. The musical style is also very similar even though the two films have a different composer at the helm. Both of these films are held in quiet high regard and have found themselves on both DVD and Blue ray. I would definitely advise you check them out. I would as a horror fan give the first a Solid 9. I love it, it is an all time classic horror movie, number 2 is a bit of a rehash and isent quiet up to the first films level but it gets a 7.5 without a shadow of a doubt, if you enjoy the first one and just want more of the same then youll absolutely eat it up.

So now what about Demons 3 you ask? Well that’s a totally different situation for a start I would have to ask a question and that question is which Demons 3 are we talking about? Well why don’t we do this based on which came first. The first film to be called Demons 3 was also called a whole lot of other things including L'ogre, The Ogre, House of the Ogre and basically any connection of these words and the words Demons 3 or Demoni III. It came out in 1988 and is most definitely a sequel in name only, there is nothing here which links to Demons or Demons 2 at all story wise. In fact I watched this one again earlier today and this was only my second viewing of it and will proberbly be my last for quite some time.  So I will sum up the basic story for you. Cheryl is an American, she is a horror author who is traveling with her husband Tom, and their young son Bobby. They go to a villa in rural Italy for a short vacation during which Cheryl plans to work on her latest book. Once there Cheryl begins having nightmares, these are the same nightmares she had as a child, they are nightmares of being stalked by a big ugly ogre

She tries to persuade her husband that the villa has a curse on it, a curse which is causing her nightmares to somehow manifest into reality. There is no hoard of demons, no growing army of the possessed only an ogre. Her husband basically thinks she is insane, that her horror writing has driven her over the edge. It is quite a slow film especially when compared to the likes of Demons and Demons 2 but I do think that certain ideas within it are very clever and there are some wonderful mood setting set pieces, it’s worth a watch but it’s no classic. So does it have anything in common with Demons? Well the director is Lamberto Bava but that’s basically it. The film although having a neat idea basically drags it out for too long and doesn’t give you enough bang for your buck, it’s not awful it’s just kind of average hence the score of 5 I would give it. There is the genesis of a good story in it though and some good set pieces there just far too weighed down in mediocrity.

 Well next there is the film known as The Church, Cathedral of Demons, The Demon Cathedral, La Chiesa, In the Land of the Demons and of course Demons 3. So is it Demons 3? Well on the one hand it once again has a  “Dario Argento Presents” tag on it.  Dario Argento also has a story and screenplay credit as well as a producer credit but there is no involvement from Lamberto Bava with this film instead being directed by Michele Soavi. Although the film is sometimes known by the title 'Demons 3', the script for 'The Church' has nothing to do with the rest of the Demons series. Apparently at one point it was originally conceived as another entry in the Demons series, but director Michele Soavi insisted that the film stand alone and not be connected with the films Demons (1985) or Demons 2 (1986) basically because he viewed them as  ‘schlock horror' and wanted his film to be something  much more sophisticated. So maybe at some point this was a proper Demons 3 during its conception but the film we got is definitely an unconnected film. That does not mean that The Church isn’t a good film in its own right, I certainly thought it was better than the ogre and I particularly enjoyed the medieval, witch hunt sequence, it is a bit slow in the middle but there are great scenes in here and there is the odd little part where you can almost see something Demons related (the closest bit being about 40 minutes in to the film when someone’s own arm appears to be possessed and grabs at his face). With a few tweeks and changes they could have made this a part of the series, infact with the medieval opening I personally feel it could have been made in to a prequel of sorts, it could have been used to explain the origins of the Demons, paid a little fan service here and there and yet still managed to be a very different more series take on horror. As it stands though I would give the film a 6, it drags too much at point to get more but I do feel there are very good parts in it. It’s a lot better overall than The Ogre though.

So this leaves us with Black Demons, Black Zombies, Demónios Negros aka the other Demons 3. This film was produced by Umberto Lenzi and written by Umberto Lenzi and Olga Pehar. While the film was original entitled Demons 3, this is very far from a Demons film. There is plot connection, no shared actors or filmmakers. Neither Dario Argento or  Lamberto Bava have anything to do with this movie in the slightest, this is the film which is probably grasping at straws the most by using the name Demons 3.

Black Demons can best be described as a low budget zombie film, yes I said Zombie film, not Demon film. It’s a voodoo based tale that relies heavily on its atmosphere and effects to carry it. While it is not Demons 3 it does share a love of gore and guts with the earlier Demons films, it feels more like it belongs to the Zombie/Zombie flesh eater’s line of films, and I don’t mean that as an insult just an observation, still I guess Zombies are much closer to Demons than Ogres are.

The film follows three college students, as they travel through Brazil. One of them wanders off from the others and gets mixed up in a voodoo ceremony, which he captures with his audio recorder. After the ceremony, the group find themselves stranded after having car issues. A young local couple appear and offer them the chance to stay at their plantation. Once at the plantation, the same student who saw the ceremony visits an old graveyard on the grounds, where he stupidly plays his audio recording and this recording brings six dead slaves back as Zombies. Armed with scythes, pitchforks, and knives, the zombie slaves seek revenge for their deaths, revenge against the living. Its not the fastest or the best Zombie film going and it doesn’t hold a candle to Demons or Demons 2 but it’s well I think it is average I would once again give it a 5 out of 10.

So does it end here?  Well as far as I know the list of films which call themselves Demons 3 does but not the list of films with a Demons related name there is a film called  La seta, also known as The Devil's Daughter, The Sect and Demons 4, One called La maschera del demonio also known as The Mask of the Demon or Demons 5: The Devil's Veil, one called Il gatto nero also known as The Black Cat or Demons 6: De Profundis/From The Deep, and lastly as far as I know there is Dellamorte Dellamore which is also known as Cemetery Man or Demons '95.

Do any of them have any real basis as a Demons Sequel? Nope. Would I recommend them? I found The Sect to be a decent film, it’s got an occult sort of story but it’s closer to a son of the devil style movie than a demon related movie featuring Satanists and such. Cemetery man is a horror comedy and is a wonderful film I would recommend it well above any of the films which held the name Demons 3.

So why do all these films have alternate titles which connect them to films they have nothing to do with? It’s all about the money baby, it’s all about the money.