Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

Game Review: The Pool (2022, Jacob Reux)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In The Pool, you are a socially awkward employee at a research facility that is investigating aquatic life.  You’re job is to keep the lights on.  As Dr. Chambers, the head of the facility, puts it, you “help to illuminate the world.”  But, at the end-of-the-month reception, you discover that there is something lurking in the facility’s pool and soon, the entire place is flooded with water and monsters.  You’ll have to figure out who you can trust as you try to escape the pool.

This is a choose-your-own-adventure Twine game.  One of my pet peeves when it comes to Interactive Fiction is that so many creators use Twine to create short stories where any choice you make inevitably leads to the same conclusion.  (Anyone who has played enough Twine game will experience the frustration of clicking on a choice, just to be told that your character has changed his mind and decided to go with the other option.)  That is why I am happy that the choices that you make in The Pool actually do make a difference.  Where you go during the reception and who you go with actually does effect the course of the game.  Because each decision also leads to different details about what is in the water, this is a game that rewards being replayed.  All in all, it’s a well-written slice of horror.

Play The Pool.

Music Video of the Day: Her Black Wings by Danzig (1990, directed by Glenn Danzig and Victor Giordano)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

It’s October so I had to find room for some Danzig.  This song appeared on Danzig’s second album, Lucifuge and it features this band at their best.  In 1990, this was the type of music that caused the nation’s moral guardians to go into tizzy.  There were actual Congressional hearings!  Imagine your Congressman listening to Danzig and probably playing it backwards to look for hidden messages.

Emjoy!

Creepozoids (1987, directed by David DeCoteau)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In 1992, society collapses due to a nuclear war.  In 1998, a group of army deserters are looking for a place to hide from the authorities when they come across an underground bunker in Los Angeles.  The bunker was once home to a research lab.  Even though all of the scientists are dead, the monster that they created is not and soon, the deserters are fighting for their lives, battling not just the monster but also giant rats.

Creepozoids is a low-budget Alien rip-off.  It’s actually a little incredible just how closely Creepozoids copies Alien, right down to a monster that can spit acid and a scene where someone has a fatal seizure while eating dinner.  The monster itself is not badly realized but the giant rats are obviously just stuffed animals that are being tossed on the cast by crew members standing off-camera.  Though the film takes place in what was then the “near future,” it’s an 80s production all the way through.  The top secret government lab as a bulky computer that only one of the deserters knows how to use.  The secrets to genetic modification are stored on a 8-inch floppy disk.  Most 80s and 90s kids will get nostalgic watching this movie.

One of the deserters is played by Linnea Quigley, which is the main reason why Creepozoids retains a cult following.  While the rest of the deserters want to search the bunker and look for supplies, Linnea’s main concern is trying out the facility’s shower.  (Good news, it works!)  Linnea Quigley appeared in many bad films but she always brought a lot of sincerity and good humor to her performances.  In Creepozoids she gamely wrestles with a stuffed rat and proves herself to be one of the best screamers of the 80s DTV horror industry.  The rest of the cast is interchangeable but, as always, Linnea earns her screen queen crown.

Creepozoids is a lesser imitation of Alien but, seen today, it benefits from nostalgia.  I can still remember Creepozoids showing up on Cinemax, late at night and with a warning that the movie featured not only adult language but also nudity and violence.  (Was anyone ever dissuaded by the Cinemax content warnings?)  This is one of the B-movies that made being an 90s kid fun!

Game Review: Use Your Psychic Powers At Applebee’s (2022, Geoffrey Golden)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Because you have the power to read minds and implant suggestions, you have been hired to serve as Schtupmeister Beer’s first Psychic Brand Ambassador.  Your job is to go to restaurants and mentally suggest to customers that they try out Schtupmeister.  What better place to start than Applebee’s?

This is a short, choose your own adventure-style game.  You go to Applebee’s, you scan the customers and the waitresses, and you decide whether or not to read their minds.  Once you get into their heads, you have the option to either help them out with their problems or just suggest that they get drunk.  It’s simple but it’s well-written and all of the characters make a strong impression.  I managed to inspire one person to drink a beer and I think may have accidentally inspired someone else to burn down the restaurant.  It’s not easy being a psychic brand ambassador!  This is an entertaining and frequently funny game, one that wins major points just by combining psychic phenomena with Applebee’s.

Play Use Your Psychic Powers At Applebee’s.

Music Video of the Day: Take It Off by King Kobra (1988, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

I was trying to remember why I picked this standard 80s metal video for today’s music video of the day.  Was it because of all the shapely legs?  That seemed probable but that would not explain why I picked it for October.  Then I remembered that this song was featured in the horror classic Black Roses, which is a movie about teenagers driven to murder by heavy metal music.  In fact, the Satanic band itself was played by King Kobra.

As for this video, it doesn’t feature any Black Roses footage but it does feature Larry Fine and Humphrey Bogart.

Enjoy!

The Zero Boys (1986, directed by Nico Mastorakis)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

When a paintball team known as the Zero Boys wins the big tournament, they decide to celebrate by spending the weekend in the woods with their girlfriends.  Accompanying the group is Jamie (Kelli Maroney), who was put up as a side bet by her boyfriend, who just happens to be the wannabe Nazi dork who lost the tournament.  The wilderness fun and games take a disturbing turn when the group comes across a deserted cabin and decide to camp there for the night.  The cabin belongs to family of hillbilly survivalists (one of whom is played by Martin Sheen’s brother, Joe Estevez) and they don’t intend to let anyone leave alive.  Soon, the Zero Boys are forced to put their paintball knowledge to the test in a real battle for survival.

The Zero Boys is one of those films that always used to come on television when I was growing up and I would always watch it because I thought it was going to be a standard, Friday the 13th-style slasher film.  When I was a kid, I would always end up getting annoyed with the film’s deliberate pace and its weird mix of the action and slasher genres.  I would usually watch for about an hour and then I would change the channel and try to find something better.  I thought The Zero Boys was just that, a big zero.

Now that I’m older, I realize that I was wrong and I better appreciate The Zero Boys and the way that it pokes fun at both the action and the slasher genres.  The Zero Boys opens with a really intense battle scene, between the Zero Boys and Casey, who is wearing a swastika armband.  It plays out like a standard Cannon action film, up until the moment that the Zero Boys catch up to Casey and shoot him in the head with a paintball. Our “heroes” are not mercenaries or former vets looking to rescue their brothers-in-arms from a POW camp.  There’s not a single Chuck Norris among them.  Instead, they’re just a bunch of dorky teens who are good at paintball and think that they have survival skills.  (One of them looks at a picture of Rambo and says, “Sly, eat your heart out.”) The movie goes on to further upend the audience’s expectations by introducing Jamie, a heroine who is anything but the typical, virginal final girl.  When it becomes obvious that the group is being stalked by a group of killers, the Zero Boys and their girlfriends actually fight back and it’s a definite change of pace from other slasher films of the era,  When it comes to horror films, The Zero Boys has more in common with The Hills Have Eyes than with Friday the 13th.

The Zero Boys is an action/horror hybrid that is willing to poke fun at itself.  It’s also one of the many superior genre pictures that Kelli Maroney made in the 80s.  Between this film, Chopping Mall, and Night of the Comet, Kelli Maroney was the crush of every 80s and 90s kid who spent too much time searching HBO and Cinemax for R-rated horror films.  She was cute but tough and, even if no one else in the movie realized it, she could definitely take care of herself.  Whether fighting malfunctioning robots, zombie scientists, or killer hillbillies, there was no one better to have on your side.

Game Review: Ghost Town (1983, Scott Adams)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

You are in a deserted ghost town.  Why are you in the town?  Who knows?  What can you do in the town?  You can search it and try to find 13 hidden treasures without falling prey to ghosts, rattlesnakes, or the weather.  Good luck!  There are many puzzles to be solved.  Hopefully, you’re better at puzzles than I am.

Ghost Town was one of the many text adventures to be written by Scott Adams in the early 80s.  Every text adventure film that has come out since owes debt to Scott Adams but that doesn’t make his games any less frustrating to play.  Basically, with this game, you get bare-bone descriptions and a two-word parser.  Don’t try to have a conversation with anything in the town.  Don’t try to get too creative with your choice of verbs or with any of the things that you find in the town.  This is from the early days of PC gaming and it’s as basic as can be.

Once you make the adjustment, though, it’s not a bad game.  Even the minimal descriptions of each location encourage the player to imagine the place for himself.  (Basic games like Ghost Town actually encourage the imagination more than games that devote paragraphs to intricate descriptions.)  It’s also a timed game, which was a big deal in the early 80s.  The ghosts in the town keep their own schedule and one of the challenges of the game is to keep up with them.  Spending too much time on one puzzle or trying to guess the verb can lead to consequences.  The puzzles are complicated but there’s a walk-through so you can cheat if you need to.  Just don’t make the same mistake that I did.

Play Ghost Town!

Music Video of the Day: Love Kills by Vinnie Vincent Invasion (1988, directed by Nigel Dick)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

After a stint as lead guitarist for KISS, Vinnie Vincent went on to form Vinnie Vincent Invasion.  Though the band was only together for four years before the members split up to pursue their own projects (two members of the band would go on to form Slaughter), Vinnie Vincent Invasion had a number of minor hits during its existence.

Love Kills was featured in Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master and Freddy repaid them for the song by appearing in the music video.  This video was directed by Nigel Dick, who I think has directed at least one video for every band that has ever existed.

Enjoy!

Vampire in Vegas (2009, directed by Jim Wynorski)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this thoroughly jumbled film, Tony Todd plays Sylvain.  Sylvain is a centuries-old vampire who now lives in a mansion in Las Vegas.  He wants to run for governor of Nevada and then he hopes to become President of the United States.  Before he can campaign, Sylvain has to find a way to spend time in the daylight without bursting into flames.  He recruits Dr. VanHelm (Delia Sheppard) to conducts experiments and develop an anti-sun serum.  When Dr. VanHelm tests a prototype of the serum on three female vampires who have been tied to stakes in the desert, the experiment is observed by a camping couple who call the police.

At the same time, Jason (Edward Spivak) is engaged to marry Rachel (Sonya Joy Sims), so his friends decide to have one last hurrah by dragging him to Vegas and throwing a party with strippers.  Unfortunately, the strippers are all vampires who work for Sylvain.  Jason and his friends become Dr. VanHelm’s latest serum guinea pigs.  When Rachel and her friend Nikki (Brandin Rackley) decide to surprise Jason in Vegas, they are also drawn into Sylvain’s web of conspiracy when it turns out that Nikki is hoping to become the newest of Sylvain’s vampiric servants.

From the minute the film opens with a lengthy exposition dump and footage of Sylvain throughout the years, Vampire in Vegas is obviously a Jim Wynorski film.  With this film, Wynorski not only recreates the nonsensical vampire politics of the Twilight movies but he combines it with the bromantic decadence of The Hangover movies.  It’s not a successful mix.  Sylvain is determined to walk in the sunlight and to run for governor of Nevada but the movie never explains why.  With his mansion and his legion of loyal followers, Sylvain has done very well as a vampire who can only come out at night.  Why would he want to potentially lose everything that he has, just so he can run for governor and eventually president?  Why would Sylvain trade everything that he has now for a job that would mostly involve renaming highways and signing whatever bills end up on his desk?  And how does Sylvain think that he’ll be able to run for governor without someone investigating his past and discovering that he’s a vampire?

That’s a lot of questions and Jim Wynorski makes no attempt to answer them.  Instead, the movie focuses on the strippers stripping and Sylvain waiting for his chance to brave the sun.  It’s a Wynorski film so no shock there.  Tony Todd plays the role with dignity, the rest of the cast is negligible in this Vegas bet that didn’t pay off.

Game Review: Ink (2022, Sangita V Nuli)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this work of Interactive Fiction, you take on the role of someone who has just lost their fiancé.  You are in mourning and trying to figure out how you can go on with your life even though you’ve lost your reason for living.  Staying at home doesn’t help.  Going to work doesn’t help.  Seeing a therapist doesn’t help.  Religion has failed.  Group therapy provides only momentary relief.

Then, you find an envelope, addressed to you and in her handwriting.  You find the envelope under a park bench that the two of you used to frequent.  Unable to open it, you leave it on the mantle next to the wedding invites that you’ll never get to send.  (Come on, that’s a powerful image.)  Sometimes, the ink on the envelope seems to move, as if the envelope itself is alive.  Will you find the courage to open the envelope and see what is inside?

Ink is an enigmatic but intriguing work of Interactive Fiction.  I would hesitate to call it a game.  It’s a short story that comes with a few options.  You can try to make different choices each time that you play but it seems like the story is fated to always reach the same conclusion, no matter how many detours you try to take.  The letter, much like mourning, cannot be escaped no matter how much you try.  The story is well-written and captures the feeling of being in deep mourning.  The inescapable ending carries enough of a kick to stick with you afterwards.

Play Ink