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Reviews
Clown (2014)
Not exceptional, but far better than the overall mediocre ratings suggest
Clown is about a dad that finds an old clown costume and puts it on to surprise his son at his birthday party. Later, he realizes the clown suit will not come off (anyone who read Goosebumps books as a kid should have gotten immediate haunted mask vibes from this). He slowly transforms into a child-eating demon and will not stop until he eats 5 kids, at which point the suit comes off, or someone decapitates him.
This movie has a lot of things working for it. It plays on people's general fear of clowns and delves into the original concepts of what we know as clowns. Kind of like fairy tales, this shows you that the whole happily ever after thing isn't in the original script. It doesn't take long at all for the plot line to kick in. It has a dark undertone with just the right amount of gore; not a pointless splatterfest, but not one of those movies where someone gets diced off screen and there isn't a drop of blood.
I think what really gives this movie points is how while it has jump scares, it doesn't rely on them to save the day. There's a good flow with the plot especially seeing the main character undergo metamorphosis from a guy in a clown suit to an actual savage demon. It doesn't rush it, but it doesn't take forever either. There's a good blend of horror and thriller with a dash of tragedy when you see how a simple family-oriented working dad tried to do a good deed for his son and ended up in a terrible situation being tortured as he transforms into a child-eating demon. Maybe part of the ratings is that there is no real bad guy in this.
I will say that the dog sequence merits this losing a star. That was unnecessary and didn't make sense given the overall plot as the dog didn't put anything on, it ate a piece.
B+/A-
Murdered: Soul Suspect (2014)
Solid B+ game
This game starts off with a very cool theme: a ghost of a hard-ass delinquent-turned-detective that has to solve his own murder. It borrows themes heavily from several well-known movies such as Ghost (possessing people/solving your own murder/unfinished business) and Beetlejuice (certain places you can't go/weird girl can see and hear you). You gain the ability to teleport, possess and control cats, and you learn a lot about the Salem Witch trials, all while tracking a guy on a killing spree that leaves a cryptic symbol of a bell.
While this game has a lot of cool elements, it is lacking in a lot of areas as well. For instance, it's one of those games where the only way something has an effect is if it is supposed to in the story. Case in point: you have a power called Poltergeist where you activate something/make a phone ring/blow papers around, etc, something that gets the attention of the living. It only has an effect on people if it's supposed to to advance the story. If you just do it randomly, everyone ignores it even if you do it 3 inches from them. Also, this game is strictly investigation and collectibles. There are no boss fights at all.
If you want a game with a cool theme that you can beat in about 10 hours and get a platinum trophy on collectibles, check this out. It's usually on PSN for about $3. Well worth it.
Important note: If you're going for the platinim, i.e. Collecting everything, you must get everything out of the museum the FIRST time you get to go there. Once you go to the final area, the game locks you there. This is NOT a game you can beat the story on and then go back and get missing collectibles.
Ghost of Tsushima (2020)
Yes. Just, yes.
This game is amazing. The scenery is vast, beautiful and nearly flawless (I say nearly because of the "ghost bamboo" in forests that you can pass right through). The combat is the perfect combination of brutality and technique, in that you can't just randomly slash away and hope to win battles, but if you master techniques and use them properly, no kills are underdone. And it has something that few games have that I personally think makes games like this awesome: your reputation matters. Yes, the more you fight and conquer things, the more fearsome your reputation becomes. So much that sometimes you'll be facing like 7 enemies and after killing 3, the rest are like NOPE! And run away.
Another fun aspect is you building an army and learning new techniques from various new friends, each with their own personality, including a sarcastic archer, a fierce warrior who lost her family and is hell-bent on revenge, and a bunch of monks who are all about peace, but also all carry naginatas and know how to use them lol.
Finally there's the story, which masterfully starts out normally, with one clan against an enemy, then things happen that turn friends into foes and foes into friends, culminating in a finale that WILL punch you in the feels hard.
All in all, this game is probably one of the best of 2020. It's challenging, rewarding, fun, and has an awesome story. What more could you want? Play it.