Retro Game Review: L.A. Noire (2011, Rockstar Games)

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

(This review is based on my experience replaying L.A. Noire. Be sure to reread Leonard Wilson’s review, from when the game was originally released.)

I recently replayed L.A. Noire, a game that I enjoyed when it was first released in 2011. I was curious to see if, after eight years, it still held up. The first time I played L.A. Noire, it was on the Xbox 360. For the replay, I used the version that was released for the PS4. This version included extra rewards and cases that were not originally included in the game.

L.A. Noire takes place in Los Angeles in the years immediately following World War II. For the majority of the game, you control the actions of Cole Phelps, a decorated USMC veteran who works his way up through the LAPD. He starts as a uniformed policeman before being promoted to detective. The game follows him through three different department until, as a result of a personal scandal, he ends up being demoted down to arson. Along the way, Phelps learns the truth about the Black Dahlia murderer and gets involved in the deadly aftereffects of a morphine heist. Through a series of flashbacks, we also discover that Phelps may not be the war hero that everyone thinks that he is. Cole’s an interesting hero because he’s so openly ambitious and judgmental that he is sometimes easy to dislike. Nearly everyone who works with Cole in the game either beings their partnership disliking him or grows to dislike him over time. Cole can be abrasive but he also has a strong moral sense and, when he says that he’s a better detective than his partners, he has a point. From the start, the games teases us about Cole’s inevitable downfall but, when it actually does happen, it catches both Cole and the player by surprise.

L.A. Noire is an open world game, meaning that Phelps can temporarily abandon a case and spend some time walking and driving around Los Angeles. The game’s recreation of 1947 Hollywood is impressive but, when compared to other open world games, there’s not much to do when you’re not actually on a mission. This isn’t like Grand Theft Auto, where you can spends weeks mugging people and stealing cars until deciding to return a phone call so that you can get your next task. L.A. Noire is a story-centered game so be prepared to spend most of your time searching crime scenes for clues, going back to the police station to pick up lab reports, and interrogating suspects.

When L.A. Noire first came out, it was the interrogation scenes that received the most attention. The game used MotionScan technology and 32 cameras to capture every possible facial expression of the actors appearing in the game. When you ask someone a question, you can watch their expressions while they answer and make the determination whether they’re lying or telling the truth, as well as whether to be a good cop or a bad cop. You can watch an liar refuses to make eye contact with you or as an innocent man sweats out an aggressive questioning. It puts you right in the world of the game, though I was disappointed to discover that wrongly accusing someone of lying doesn’t actually have much of an effect on how each case ends.

The main flaw with L.A. Noire‘s stoy is that, during the final fourth of the game, a new character is introduced. Jack Kelso served with Cole in the Marines and knows the truth about Cole’s wartime “heroism.” For the final few cases, Jack replaces Cole as the playable character and Cole is reduced to supporting him. Because Jack is written to be perfect and basically has none of Cole’s flaws, he’s also not a very interesting protagonist. Switching from playing Cole to Kelso bothered me the first time that I played L.A. Noire and it bothered me even more when I replayed it. A final cut scene, which revealed that Kelso knew more than he originally let on, did not help.

Fortunately, the rest of the game still held up very well. The cases are all challenging without being impossible to solve and the game does a great job of recreating the atmosphere of classic California noirs like Chinatown and L.A. Confidential. Cole, his partners, and all of the suspects are vividly written and voiced characters and the cases that Cole works for Homicide are just creepy enough to make this game appropriate for October playing. Be careful chasing the Black Dahlia killer into the catacombs. I didn’t bother to pay attention to where I was going and I spent an hour running around in circles before I finally found him and promptly got gunned down.

There are puzzles to be solved and suspects to be pursued. This game may mostly be about interrogating people and analyzing clues but it does have its share of car chases. Fortunately, if you fail to complete an action scene too many times in a row, the game will give you the option of just skipping it. When you’re working with a partner and heading to a crime scene, that game also give you the option of telling your partner to drive to the location. That’s something I, being among the directionally challenged, appreciated.

However, if you do enjoy driving through a video game, L.A. Noire‘s recreation of Los Angeles in the 40s has much to recommend it. Driving through the game’s version of Los Angeles, you’ll find plenty of evidence of America’s post-World War II optimism. New houses are being constructed. Innocent young women are hanging out on every street corner, looking to become a star. The theater marquees advertise movies like Odd Man Out. All of the famous Hollywood landmarks are lovingly recreated. An early case leads to you searching for clues behind the Hollywood sign. Another case actually leads to a firefight at the old Intolerance set while yet another case tests how much attention you’ve been paying by requiring you to solve a series of riddles that will lead you from one landmark to another. In the tradition of Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy, L.A. Noire challenges you to take a look at what’s happening underneath Los Angeles’s pleasing surface.

As a game, L.A. Noire holds up well. I won’t hold my breath for that sequel that was promised seven years ago but I did enjoy replaying it.

Horror Scenes I Love: The Television Scene From Ringu

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday, in a comment, Michael McClure mentioned this scene as a scary one and you know what? He’s right!

So, I decided — why not share it today?

Now, of course, if this scene seems familiar, that’s because it was later remade as The Ring. This, however, is from the Japanese original.

From 1998’s Ringu, here’s a scene that I love!

Book Review: Lucio Fulci: Beyond The Gates: A Tribute To The Maestro by Chas Balun

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Three years ago, I was really happy to discover that TCM was showing Lucio Fulci’s classic slasher, The House By The Cemetery.

Finally, I said, the maestro is getting some respect!

It’s the same feeling that I had when I recently came across both Zombi 2 and The Beyond playing on Showtime. Sure, there’s a huge difference between one of your movies appearing on Showtime or Cinemax and being a respected filmmaker. I mean, Uwe Boll’s movies are on all the time. But still, just the fact that Fulci’s films were being shown meant that there was a chance that others would see them for the first time and maybe — just maybe — that person would get it. That person would watch Fulci’s films and they would understand why horror fans like me continually describe him as being one of the best and most important filmmakers of all time.

Indeed, when it comes to Fulci, you either get it or you don’t. When he died in 1996, Fulci was reportedly living in poverty and, despite all of his past cinematic successes, was struggling to find the financial support necessary to keep making films. Sadly, he did not live to see his films rediscovered by horror fans like me. Today, I’d say Fulci is still an underappreciated filmmaker but, slowly but surely, the Cult of Fulci is growing. If nothing else, the current zombie movie boom would never happened without the efforts of both Lucio Fulci and George Romero.

Lucio Fulci: Beyond The Gates is a short, 79-page booklet that was published in 1996, immediately after Fulci’s death. It’s really less a book than an extended essay written by a fan named Chas Balun. The book, which covers Fulci’s filmography and pithily defends his work against his detractors, was really written mostly for Fulci fans. It’s a booklet that we can read and laugh to ourselves as we say, “Can you believe those people who really don’t get it?” As such, it’s probably not the book to give to someone who isn’t already a fan. But, for those of us who already get it, it can be a fun read. At the very least, it’s an important historical document as a tribute to the director that was written directly after Fulci’s death. It’s the loving eulogy that Fulci deserved.

It’s also a bit of a collector’s item. If you go on Amazon right now, you’ll find that copies in “new” condition are going for $100. Used copies are going for $70.94. I found my copy at Half-Price Books in Dallas and I paid $1.50 for it.

International Horror Film: The Shiver of the Vampires (dir by Jean Rollin)

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This is the one with the vampire in the clock.

Now, admittedly, a female vampire emerging from a grandfather clock is an image to which filmmaker Jean Rollin would frequently return. It was one of his most iconic images and, in many ways, a perfect visual for his uniquely dream-like aesthetic. Seeing as how Rollin’s films always seemed to be, at least somewhat, concerned with how the past bleeds over into the present, it only makes sense that every grandfather clock — that ultimate symbol of the past — would have a vampire lurking somewhere within it.

As far as I know, though, 1971’s The Shiver of the Vampires was the first time that Rollin ever featured a vampire emerging from a clock. Rollin often cited The Shiver of the Vampires are being one of his personal favorites from his filmography so it makes sense that he would continually return to that film’s best-known moment.

Though I prefer later films like Living Dead Girl, Two Orphan Vampires, and Night of the Hunted, The Shiver of the Vampires is definitely one of Rollin’s best films. It’s certainly the first of his films in which Rollin feels like a truly mature filmmaker. This was his third film and, like both Le Viol du Vampire and The Nude Vampire, it plays out like a cinematic dream. At the same time, it’s more coherent than either of those earlier films, without the occasional moments of pretension that sometimes threatened to make those two films feel like elaborate student exercises.

The Shiver of the Vampires takes place in all of the usual Rollin locations. There’s an isolated castle and decrepit castle, a symbol of the past which still features very modern graffiti on some of the walls. There’s the chapel, which seems to be specifically designed to accommodate human sacrifice. And, of course, there’s the beach. As with so many Rollin films, all paths lead to the beach, a location that Rollin presents as being both comforting and menacing.

The Shiver of the Vampires tells the story of a honeymooning newlywed couple, Isle (Sandra Julien) and Antoine (Jean-Marie Durand). Isle is looking forward to visiting her two cousins at their castle but, upon arriving, Isle and Antoine discover that the castle is now the home to two young women and that Isle’s cousins died just the day before. Upset at both the news and a strange meeting with another woman named Isabelle (Nicole Nancel), Isle decides to spend the night sleeping alone. However, while Isle is getting ready for bed, Isolde (played by the singularly-named Dominique) emerges from the grandfather clock.

Isolde is the vampire who not only killed the cousin but who, along with her two servants, has taken over the castle. While Isolde leads Isle to the cemetery, Antoine wanders around the castle and just happens to run into the two dead cousins…

At its heart, The Shiver of the Vampires is an old Universal haunted castle movie with a bit more nudity and the sexuality move to the forefront as opposed to just being subtext. It’s a horror film with plenty of blood and one rather nasty death via piercing by pointed nipple covers. At the same time, it’s also a rather sentimental film. Ultimately, Isle is vulnerable not because she has any secret desire to be a vampire but instead because her cousins, regardless of what they’ve become, are the only family that she has left. Married or not, Antoine is just an interloper.

As with all of Rollin’s films, The Shiver of the Vampires plays out at its own dream-like pace, with the camera loving examining every inch of the old castle. On the one hand, the film may be a dream of dark and disturbing things but, at the same time, it’s also a sad-eyed look at family and the impossibility of escaping the past.

And, of course, you’ll never forget that grandfather clock.

Guilty Pleasure No. 44: Paranormal State

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“We are students…..we are seekers…..and sometimes we are warriors. And each time we help someone, I feel like I’m one step closer to finding the truth…”

The words opened up all 86 episodes of Paranormal State, a “reality” show that ran on A&E from 2007 to 2011. They were delivered by Ryan Buell, who was the head of the Pennsylvania State University Paranormal Research Society. Buell also narrated every episode of Paranormal State and perhaps the most memorable thing about the show was the strangely robotic sound of his narration. Buell delivered his lines in a memorably flat monotone, one that rarely betrayed a hint of emotion while talking about the spirits that the Team supposedly dealt with in each and every episode. Even when Buell talked about the demon that had supposedly been stalking him since childhood, he did so with all the emotion of Alexa confirming a grocery list.

Paranormal State was one of those shows where people would around in a dark house with an infrared camera while randomly saying stuff like, “Did you feel that? I felt a suddenly cold wind in this room. You’ll just have to take my word for it.” Occasionally, a light would get knocked over or a door would close on its own. Along with asking each other if they had felt anything, the members of the Paranormal Research Society were also fond of asking, “Did you hear that?” and “Oh my God, did you just see that?” I always liked it when they would review the film in slow-motion and point at a barely visible smudge on the image and say, “There it is. There’s the spirit.” Ultimately, it would usually lead to a medium being called in and wandering around the house and going, “It’s time for you to move on, spirit. Whisper something if you’re here. Oh my God, did you hear that?”

It was all pretty obviously staged and kind of dumb but I still enjoyed the show because I liked the idea of a bunch of college students skipping class so that they could spend the night in a deserted barn while waiting for the ghost of a angry farmer to push over a pitchfork or something. I mean, if my college had given credit for ghost hunting, I totally would have done it! The show may have been fake but it was fun to pretend that it was real.

After the show ended, Ryan Buell had his personal difficulties, which I’m not going to dwell on. As for the show, it actually lives on. I recently came across reruns on the FYI network and I’ve lost track of the number of people I’ve met who, like me, can recite that opening narration by heart. Seriously, it just gets in your head.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

4 Shots From 4 Films: 28 Days Later, Bubba Ho-Tep, Halloween: Resurrection, The Ring

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

This October, we’re using 4 Shots From 4 Films to look at some of the best years that horror has to offer!

4 Shots From 4 2002 Horror Films

28 Days Later (2002, dir by Danny Boyle)

Bubba Ho-Tep (2002, dir by Don Coscarelli)

Halloween Resurrection (2002, dir by Rick Rosenthal)

The Ring (2002, dir by Gore Verbinski)

Horror Film Review: The Guardian (dir by William Friedkin)

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

OH MY GOD! THAT TREE IS EATING PEOPLE!

“You mean the tree played by Kevin Costner?”

No, no. You’re thinking of the wrong Guardian, my imaginary friend. This Guardian is from 1990 and it’s the killer tree film that was directed by William Friedkin.

“William Friedkin directed a killer tree film?”

Apparently so.

“What’s it about?”

It’s kind of hard to say. Camilla (Jenny Seagrove) is hired as a nanny and proceeds to not only claim the baby as her own but also tries to seduce the baby’s father away from his wife.

“I think it’s cute the way that you always mention the actor’s name is parenthesis….”

Well, that’s what we’re taught to do. But back to The Guardian. The Guardian could also be a movie about a druid who steals babies so that she can sacrifice them to a tree God.

“You mean like that big talking tree from the from Lord of the Rings?”

I guess. Or maybe Camilla is a reincarnation of Lillith, the demon who kidnaps babies in the night.

“Poor Lillith, so misunderstood.”

Or maybe Camilla is a witch who can make wolves and tress do her bidding!

“Like Sabrina?”

I don’t want to talk about fcking Sabrina.

“Did you mean to spell the f-word that way?”

I try to keep my actual cursing to minimum. That way, it means something.

“That’s sweet.”

Whatever. Back to The Guardian! It’s also possible that Camilla actually is a tree that’s come to life and is now doing evil tree stuff!

“So, what you’re saying is that the film is unclear about just what exactly Camilla’s deal is?”

That’s it, exactly! The Guardian is a notorious mess and it’s probably significant that this is one of two films that William Friedkin doesn’t even acknowledge in his otherwise tell-all autobiography, Friedkin Confidential. Reportedly, there were problems on the set. From what little I’ve found online, it would appear that Friedkin originally wanted the movie to be about a mentally deranged woman who thought she was a druid. But the producers wanted a horror film about a woman who actually was a druid. Somehow, this eventually led to The Guardian becoming a movie about a woman who is actually a tree. What’s funny is that the film itself feels like a typical crazy nanny Lifetime film, up until the moment that one of Camilla’s employers attempts to take a chainsaw to that tree.

“Trees don’t like chainsaws.”

Yeah, no joke. Anyway, before all that happens, Camilla is killing people left and right but yet no one seems to notice. She doesn’t make any secret of the fact that she’s trying to seduce Phil (Dwier Brown) but Phil’s wife, Kate (Carey Lowell), doesn’t seem to care. Instead, Phil and Kate attempt to set Camilla up with their friend, goofy Ned (Brad Hall). It doesn’t take long for Ned to get devoured by a bunch of wolves. That’s what happens when you walk in on a druid nanny turning into a tree, I guess.

“Isn’t Brad Hall married to Julia Louis-Dreyfus?”

Indeed, he is! And you don’t see him in any movies nowadays so I guess getting eaten by wolves was kind of the last straw. But the movie gets even weirder! There’s also an odd scene in which three gang members just happen to be walking through the woods when they come across Camilla and the baby. They kind of pop up out of nowhere and they immediately turn out to be some pretty bad guys. Luckily, a tree pops up and kills the all. Is the tree Camilla or is the tree someone else? Who knows?

“Gang members in the woods? You mean like in Friday the 13th Part 3?”

Strangely enough, yes. Even stranger is the fact that no one notices anything strange about Camilla. To be honest, there are times that Camilla might as well be wearing a sign that reads, “Druid” but no one seems to notice. Then again, it’s debatable whether or not she was actually a druid. She might actually be a tree and I guess it’s understandable that something like that wouldn’t naturally occur to anyone. I mean, I think we’ve all probably met a druid or two but someone who is actually a tree? Well, that’s unusual.

“Very unusual!”

Anyway, The Guardian is a messy film and I’m afraid that I’m probably making it sound more fun than it actually is. If you do watch it, please be sure to chime in with your thoughts on whether or not Camilla is actually a tree. I look forward to hearing your opinion!

“Don’t you want to hear my opinion?”

No.

Yes, this an actual scene from The Guardian.

Horror on the Lens: Hands of a Stranger (dir by Newt Arnold)

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After concert pianist Vernon Paris (James Stapleton) loses his hands in an auto accident, he is the recipient of a double hand transplant. Unfortunately, Vernon isn’t happy with having a stranger’s hands and he fears that he’ll never be able to play the piano again. Even worse, he soon becomes convinced that the hands are evil and are trying to force him to commit murders.

But is it the hands or Vernon’s own unstable mind that’s responsible his actions?

This 1962 horror film was the fourth adaptation of the Maurice Renard’s The Hands of Orlac. As opposed to other film adaptations of Renard’s novel, Hands of Stranger plays up the ambiguity of whether the recipient of the hands is truly possessed or if he’s just using the hands as an excuse to indulge in his dark side.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Black River Killer by Blitzen Trapper (2009, dir by Daniel Elkayam)

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If Cormac McCarthy was writing and directing music videos, the end result would probably be a lot like this brilliant video for Blitzen Trapper’s Black River Killer.

The song may be about a man who is thrown in jail on a whim and charged with the murder of a woman that was found on the Sunset Strip but, as soon becomes obvious, sometimes whims turn out to be correct. The song’s narrator is a murderer, one who kills randomly and without giving it much of a second thought. According to an interview Eric Earley gave to Rainn Wilson, the killer is actually a supernatural force that possesses one individual after another. So, even if the current Black River Killer ceases his activities, a new one will take his place.

Enjoy!

Horror on TV: Suspense 1.7 “A Night At The Inn” (dir by Robert Stevens)

Posted on October 21, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Suspense was an anthology series that aired from 1949 to 1953. As you can probably guess from the show’s title, each episode was a thriller of some sort. Occasionally, the episodes were also horror-themed. Suspense was also a live production, with each episode essentially functioning as a 30-minute play.

Tonight’s episode of Suspense originally aired on April 26th, 1949 and it features Boris Karloff. It deals with four thieves hiding out in a British Inn, after having stolen a ruby eye from a holy statue in India. Needless to say, that was not a particularly wise decision.

Enjoy!