Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

The Stepfather II: Make Room For Daddy (1989, directed by Jeff Burr)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Remember how, at the end of the first Stepfather film, Jerry Blake (played, in a classic horror performance, by Terry O’Quinn), was killed by the family that he was planning on murdering for not living up to his expectations?

It turns out that he wasn’t dead after all.  He was shot.  He was stabbed in the back.  Somehow, he wasn’t killed.  Also, despite being a mass murderer, he was sent to a mental institution where the security is so lackadaisical that he manages to murder a psychologist and a guard and then escape once again.

Taking on the name of Gene Clifford and passing himself off as a family therapist, the Stepfather continues his search for the perfect family.  He meets and becomes engaged to Carol (Meg Foster), who doesn’t find it weird that Gene is always whistling Camden Races.  Before he can marry Carol, Gene is going to need to dispose of her ex-husband and her best friend.  And, of course, Carol and her son Todd (Jonathan Brandis) are going to have to live up to Gene’s ideal of the perfect American family.

This is a disposable sequel, which eliminates all of the humor of the first film and just turns Jerry/Gene into another generic slasher.  The strength of the first film was that Jerry seemed likable up until the moment that his idealized vision of the perfect family was threatened.  Then he snapped and ended up in the basement, ranting and raving.  In Stepfather II, Gene is obviously dangerous from the start and a lot less interesting.  The movie is unfortunate and unnecessary and even Terry O’Quinn seems to be bored.  Give the film some credit, though, for giving Meg Foster a sympathetic role.  Gene may be crazy but no one could blame him for falling for Carol.  How could anyone resist those eyes?

Game Review: The Godfather II (2009, EA)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Since I had already gotten my old Xbox 360 out of storage so I could play The Godfather game this weekend, I decided to also try my hand at the replaying game version of The Godfather II.

The Godfather II takes place in the 60s.  You play Dom, a Corleone soldier who becomes Michael’s right-hand man after you help him escape from Cuba during the revolution.  Back in New York, Michael assigns you to take control of the city from the Rosato brothers.  Eventually, you will also gain the ability to fly out to Miami and Cuba, where you’ll meet Hyman Roth and continue to extort businesses and battle rival families.  It’s another Grand Theft Auto-style game, where you can focus on the story or you can just focus on exploring the open world and seeing what type of trouble you can get into.

The good thing about The Godfather II is that you get to select the members of your crew and you can send them on all of the missions that you don’t feel like dealing with.  They also stick with you and act as bodyguards whenever you get into a gun fight.  Choosing the members of your crew is one of the best parts of the game because every potential recruit comes with their own skills and their own personality.  Like you, the members of your crew can be taken out of commission if they get heavily wounded but they’ll always return after a brief trip to the hospital.  However, if you get tired of a member of your crew, you can remove his invulnerability and toss him off a roof or send him on a suicide mission to attack the Rosato Compound all by himself.  That’s the power of being the underboss.

Other than the stuff with the crew, Godfather II is not as much fun as the first Godfather game.  The combat feels clunky and the game’s overall design feel rushed.  Sending Dom to three different cities instead of concentrating on recreating 60s New York was a mistake.  There’s not that much difference between the game’s version of New York, Miami, and Havana.  Plus, the game didn’t allow me to take out Castro.  What’s the point of sending me to Havana if you’re not going to let me change history?

When it comes to Godfather games, the second one is good enough to be played once but it doesn’t reward a replay.  The first Godfather game is the one that still remains enjoyable after all these years.

Video Game Review: The Godfather (2006, EA)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Due to getting handed a major project at work, I missed the last few days of our annual Horrorthon and now I’ve got some catching up to do.  It’s frustrating and, whenever I get frustrated and need to blow off some steam, I get my old Xbox 360 out of storage and I concentrate my efforts on running the Straccis out of New Jersey.

New Jersey is one of the many neighborhoods that you can take over in EA’s video game version of The Godfather.  New Jersey is full of nice houses, dive bars, and police that are so incompetent that I got away with bombing their station on numerous occasions.  If you don’t feel like taking over New Jersey, you can go into Brooklyn and pick a fight with the Tattaglia family.  Or you can drive into Hell’s Kitchen, the worst part of New York and fight the Cuneos.  If you’re really brave, you can try to take over Midtown but Midtown is controlled by the Barzini family and the Barzinis don’t go down without a fight.  If you get into too many fights, you might accidentally start a gang war but you can always find an FBI agent in a church and bribe him to end the war.  Just don’t accidentally shoot the guy.  I did that a few times.

The Godfather is an open world game, a 1940s version of Grand Theft Auto that happens to feature characters from classic gangster film.  You play a Corleone family associate who, over the course of the game, goes from being a soldier to being the Don of New York.  Along the way, you take part in all of the major scenes from the film.  When Sonny is gunned down, you’re the one who chases his assassins.  When Michael shoots the Turk, you’re the one who drives him to the docks so he can head to Sicily.  When it’s time to get revenge on Paulie Gatto and Tessio, you’re the one handed the gun.  You get the idea.  James Caan, Robert Duvall, and even Marlon Brando voiced their film characters for the game.  (Brando’s recordings, unfortunately, weren’t usable and a soundalike was brought in to redo most of his lines.)  Al Pacino did not voice Michael and the game’s Michael looks nothing like Pacino because Pacino had already agreed to exclusively license his appearance to the Scarface game.

As a game, The Godfather can get repetitive.  As your gangster gains experience, he’ll level up and receive skill points.  It really doesn’t take that long to become so powerful that none of the other families have a chance against you.  (Only the Barzini Family remains challenging to the very end.)  The interactions with the storekeepers that you intimidate to get protection all tend to follow the same pattern.  Storywise, the game actually cheapens the movie because it suggests that the Corleones were so incompetent that they had to keep calling you in to clean up all of their messes.

But, flaws and all, the game is pretty damn addictive.  Once I get into my vintage, 1940s car and start driving around New York (which is lovingly recreated, even if it is on a much smaller scale than the real New York), I’m in the zone.  Under the right circumstances, the simplicity of The Godfather can be refreshing.  Drive around.  Hijack a truck.  Fight the gangsters.  If the police get upset, just go to a nearby safehouse and save the game.  If you get bored, grab a bomb and take out an abandoned building or maybe a parked car.  It’s a game so there aren’t any consequences to doing incredibly foolish things.  Or, if you just want to relax, you can just drive around the city and appreciate all of your territory.  It’s up to you.  When you’re the Don of New York, you can do anything you want.

Music Video of the Day: Hey Stoopid by Alice Cooper (1991, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Hey Stoopid is the title track off of Alice Cooper’s 12th solo studio album.  The song is about drug abuse and suicide, with Alice telling his listeners to stay off drugs, to “put the gun down,” and that rock and roll isn’t about being self-destructive.  Alice Cooper even sings, “You ain’t living in a video.”  (Thought he did struggle with alcohol and it would probably shock many of the people who criticized him during his 70s heyday, Alice Cooper has always been anti-drug.)  Slash plays guitar on the track while Ozzy Osbourne provided backing vocals.

The music videos is a mix of live action, animations, and Alice Cooper performing with a skull.  I wouldn’t mind spending a day in Alice Cooper Land.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: You Could Be Mine by Guns N’ Roses (1991, directed by Andy Morahan, Stan Winston and Jeffrey Abelson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this video, Arnold Schwarzenegger is sent to the past to eliminate Guns N’ Roses but ultimately decides that it would be a waste of ammo.  Obviously, he knew that fulfilling his mission would change history and the world would never get to hear Chinese Democracy.

This song (and this video) were used to promote Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Numb by Pet Shop Boys (2006, directed by Julian Gibbs and Chris Sayer)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

According to the band, the music video for Numb was meant to be an homage to Russian constructivist cinema and the video does have the look of the old propaganda films that were put into production during the early days of the Soviet Union.  The video also begins with what appears to be the sinking of the Titanic before moving onto all of the other tragedies that occurred around the same time.  It may not be a “Halloween song” but the video does have a horror aesthetic.

Numb, itself, is a song that was often played whenever the UK was dealing with a tragedy, like being eliminated from the World Cup.

Enjoy!

Game Review: Approaching Horde! (2022, Craig Ruddell)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Your nightly routine is interrupted by the zombie apocalypse!  With your wife and most of your neighbors now turned into denizens of the damned, it is up to you to manage a ragtag group of ten survivors and find a way to survive the end of the world.

Approaching Horde! is a resource management game where you assign each of the survivors in your group a specific task.  There’s a lot that need to be done and the more survivors that you assign to each task, the quicker it will be completed.  The problem is that if you assign too many people to one task, the other tasks won’t get done.  If you have too many people working on a zombie cure but not on growing food, the survivors will starve.  If you have too many people growing food but not working on a cure, your people will be well-fed but they’ll be eaten as soon as the zombie horde arrives.  Fortunately, you can send some of your people out to look for other survivors.  The more people you recruit into your camp, the quicker you can get things done.

It’s a challenge but that makes success all the more rewarding.  Fortunately, the game comes with adjustable difficulty settings.  I found the easiest setting to be pretty difficult but then I was played at the hardest setting and realized just how crazy the zombie apocalypse can get!  I enjoyed this game and, due to its format, it’s one that can be played over and over again.  Trying to survive the end of the world is certainly addictive!

Play Approaching Horde!

The Lurking Fear (1994, directed by C. Courtney Joyner)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

For years, the town of Leffert’s Corners has lived in fear of the criminal Martense family.  The family’s youngest son, John (Blake Bailey), has just been released from prison and now he’s returning home.  He knows that, before he died, his father arranged for a thousand dollars to be buried in the cemetery.  After the town mortician (Vincent Schiavelli, in a too brief cameo) tells him where it is, John heads to the cemetery.  Unfortunately, he’s followed by crime boss Bennett (Jon Finch) and his thugs.

Cathryn (Ashley Laurence) and Dr. Haggis (Jeffrey Combs) are already at the cemetery, though not for the money.  It turns out that subterranean monsters (all of whom are descended from one John’s relatives) are living underneath the cemetery grounds and terrorizing the town.  Cathryn and Haggis are planning on blowing up the graveyard but that plan is put on hold when John and Bennett arrive.  Underground monsters or not, Bennett is planning on getting that money and if that means holding everyone hostage in a church while the monsters prepare to attack, that is exactly what he is going to do.

As is evident by the welcome presence of Jeffrey Combs, The Lurking Fear is another Full Moon production that was loosely adapted from a H.P. Lovecraft short story.  The premise has promise and the cast is full of talent but the film’s direction is flat, the script is shallow, and the monsters themselves look good but there’s nothing that set them apart from a dozen other monsters that have appeared in Full Moon productions.  (The monsters resemble the dungeon dweller from Castle Freak but they are never as scary.)  It’s too bad because The Lurking Fear is one of Lovecraft’s best short stories and it seems like one that would make a great movie.  But, as a movie, The Lurking Fear, like so many other Full Moon productions, doesn’t seem to know what to do with itself whenever the monsters aren’t around.  Hopefully, someday, Lovecraft’s The Lurking Fear will get the film adaptation that it deserves.

Game Review: A House On A Hill (2022, Devin Cummings)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

There’s a house on a hill that everyone says in haunted.  Your friends Ingram and Ryan have dared you to enter the house, even though you might get sick from something you find in there or you might even die.  You can try to convince one of them to enter the house with you.  You can enter the house alone.  Or you can go home.

If there’s one thing that every good Interactive Fiction writer understands, it’s that you can get a player to do anything if you suggest that doing otherwise would make them a coward.  Saying “Go Home Coward” is the equivalent of making chicken noises.

Once you enter the house, you can search the rooms and you get a chance to make a few simple decisions about whether or not to do certain things.  Throughout it all, you are given the option to turn around leave.  You’ll get called a coward but considering what does happen if you stay, sometimes it is worth being called a coward.

This is a simple Twine game and it shouldn’t take anyone longer than 10 minutes to play it.  But there are enough different areas of the house to explore and enough possible outcomes that the game itself can be replayed several times.

Play A House On A Hill.