They're fighting over who is Impulse's favourite

[END 2020] My Top 9 Danmei Novel Picks of the Year

As a part of my Round Up post for the year, here’s my pick of favourite danmei novels, that I’ve read! This is sort of an accompaniment to my previous danmei rec list over HERE, so there may be one or two overlaps, but I’ve read WAY MORE after that and am prepared to like give more options here 

Note: There should be English translations for all via novel updates if you do a search of the English name, but I don’t think most of them are completed.

If you wanna see my full reading and queue list (it’s all in Chinese tho, for my own records), it’s here.

I’m leaving out the usual MXTX and Priest ones, because they’re already good and we all know that and there’re many carrds and posts dedicated to them.

I am also a sucker for fainting but smart men, and not too overly angsty/complicated storylines, just putting it out there first, which is why I haven’t read a lot of some of the ones on my queue list.

-------

1. 一剑霜寒 | A Sword of Frost by 语笑阑珊

Summary: Jing Yan Ran is the Emperor’s brother and wields military power in the novel, and it starts with an object being stolen from the palace. Jing Yan Ran has to retrieve the item secretly, and so enlists the help of Feng Yu Sect’s Sect Master, Yun Yi Feng, who heads the martial arts world’s one and only information trading post. Yun Yi Feng does not deal in business that involves any royalty, but Jing Yan Ran offers him something he cannot refuse - the Blood Red Lingzhi, a rare and mystical herb that is rumoured to be able to treat his life-threatening condition. 

Yun Yi Feng was used by his shifu when he was younger to test out all kinds of poisons and cures, and since then, his body flushes dangerously hot and cold frequently, with bouts of severe coughing fits in between. Throughout the first mission where he spends time with Jing Yan Ran searching for the stolen object, he allows Jing Yan Ran to take care of him, and they fall in LURVE pretty much like 10 chapters in.

Of course, they have to uncover a plot and conspiracy against their enemies who are plotting to dethrone the Emperor, and also reveal the secrets of Yun Yi Feng’s birth.

My Thoughts: AN ABSOLUTE FAVE AND GEM, I’d say this is my favourite danmei novel ever. This is both hilarious and tears-inducing, to be honest, because for most of the novel YYF knows he doesn’t have long to live and so in the beginning he knows of his own feelings for JYR and JYR also shows him that he loves him, but he is unable to officially reciprocate because he knows his body is like weakening day by day. Halfway through the fear that he’s literally about to die as they are JUST about to find the cure is real, and damn I cried so much at that. Some highlights:

YYF falls asleep very easily in baths and everywhere actually, and pretty much within the first 10 chapters he gets used to JYR carrying him around (even naked from the bath, he’s like oh well, okay cool) and taking care of him, and JYR ALWAYS makes sure he is warm and toasty under his cape

YYF LOVESSSS RICHES, PLAYING THE ZITHER AND COOKING - He’s good at gathering the first one, but he FUCKING SUCKS AS THE LAST TWO - It’s so funny because he’s so beautiful and handsome right, and when he sits down at the zither everyone is like OH DAMN WHAT A DREAM- and then he plays, and everyone’s fantasies is shattered, he’s ABYSMAL at it, and the same goes for cooking

JYR doesn’t actually have the Blood Red Lingzhi, and throughout the first arc, he feels SO DAMN GUILTY because YYF even carved out a pendant that looks like what he thinks the herb looks like, and like carries it with him everywhere LMAO

Available: Novel Online and Manhua on Bilibili

2. 高能二维码 | High Energy QR Code by 青色羽翼

Summary: CEO Xing Ye’s brother Xing Shuo has just passed away at the age of 24, and nothing will make him believe that Xing Shuo died of natural causes despite autopsies and experts telling him that he really died simply of a heart failure. Xing Ye, who has impeccable memory, suddenly recalls the last time he saw Xing Shuo. His brother called out to him just before Xing Ye left for a business trip, and looked as if he had something to say, but ended up just wishing him a safe trip.

At that moment, there was a QR code on Xing Shuo’s phone, and the phone screen was strangely turned out towards Xing Ye, and Xing Ye, with his incredibly high IQ and memory, realizes that Xing Shuo wanted him to see the QR code. Quickly, he reproduces the QR code by pen and then scans it, and finds himself in a game world.

There he meets a narcissistic but also cute mirror which can speak, and finds out later that his name is Lu Ming Ze. Xing Ye’s mission is to clear the game missions in each round that is set by the black and white cubic game system, a system that continuously tempts its players into giving in to committing sins such as killing someone else, stealing and other things. He soon realizes that if he cannot stay on a path clear of these sins, he will never be able to triumph over the game system and return Lu Ming Ze back to his body in the real world. 

At the same time, he gains new teammates and friends for life, and also finds out what role his brother played in this game. 

My Thoughts: MY GOD I LOVE THIS. I LITERALLY JUST FINISHED READING THIS YESTERDAY, and honestly it’s one of my faves. I don’t like game systems very often (I’ve read three others so far, and this, and KOD are the only ones I’ve liked) but this one is *chef’s kiss*. So LMZ was born like with a really handsome face, like SUPER HANDSOME, and that’s why he’s like a harmless narcissist that cannot bear to look at ugly things LMAO, but he’s not spoilt, he makes sure that Xing Ye stays true to himself, and help him keep his head clear. 

THE ONLY THING ABOUT THIS FRICKIN NOVEL IS THAT LU MING ZE STAYS A MIRROR, LIKE DIFFERENT KINDS OF MIRRORS, in the first TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY CHAPTERS. I KID YOU NOT. I FRICKIN KID YOU NOT. I swear I was sooo touched starved at the end of the novel, because they couldn’t even kiss?!! Like Xing Ye kisses the mirror, and then uses his thumbs to like hi-five mini LMZ in the mirror back, they can’t even hug. Do you know how empty my arms felt when I read this book?!! And my arms have never been filled!!!!!!

I really like this one because each game world is set up in such a brilliant way, but it’s not so unnecessarily complex that you literally don’t know what the fuck is going on. Xing Ye’s intelligence as he outmanoeuvres every single one of his enemies and convinces his would-be loyal teammates to trust him is so satisfying, world after world, victory after victory.

Humour is also absolutely ON POINT. A lot of it is centred on Xing Ye getting caught in the real world kissing his handheld mirror (LMZ) by LMZ’s parents (who cannot see him in the mirror) and LMZ’s parents going like ???!!!!!!!! 

Available: Novel Online | Physical Novel is coming out on 10 Dec (freebies are, you guessed it, a mirror)

3. 妻为上 | The Wife is First by 绿野千鹤

Summary: This is set in a historical setting where men can marry other men, but it’s usually reserved for sons who were not borne by the official main first wife of the patriarch of the family, i.e. a son born by a concubine in a family may be forced to marry a man to keep him from being able to become the next family’s patriarch for example. This is because any family’s next leader needs to be able to have children with a wife who married in as a zheng shi (lawful wife), and not a ce shi (second wife) or any other concubines/mistresses etc. Most of these men who marry other men have to take them as their zheng shi and lawful spouse in a sense, and the same goes for the royal family.

The story starts with third prince Jing Shao, who was forced to marry Mu Han Zhang, a Marquis’ second son, by the Empress and Emperor, thereby officially and effectively cutting him out of the race for the throne. He’s mocked by the public as everyone knows what this means, and for the next 10 years, he neglects Mu Han Zhang, blaming him for his predicament, and deliberately showers his three other concubines with affection in front of him, but 10 years later, when Jing Shao is accused of treason, everyone leaves him except for Mu Han Zhang. They are chased to the edge of the cliff by soldiers, and Mu Han Zhang dies in his arms having taken an arrow meant for him earlier, and Jing Shao jumps off the cliff with his dead body, and promises that if there’s a next life, he will do everything Han Zhang says, and love him.

He wakes up immediately on the night of his marriage with Han Zhang, and realizes that he’s been given a second chance to make everything right. Han Zhang is definitely afraid of him, humiliated and angry when he first wakes up after how rough Jing Shao was with him earlier on their wedding night, and he has no memories of their past life. Jing Shao then sets to SHOWER HAN ZHANG with affection, love and basically everything, because he realized that this is the only person who stayed by his side until the end, and then he falls in love with Han Zhang properly this time, and also deals with every single person who maligned and schemed against him in his previous life, with Han Zhang by his side.

My Thoughts: OKAY BEFORE YALL GO INTO THE ‘WIFE’ terminology discourse and everything, in this case they do use the term ‘wife’ literally, and it’s a position, that while men frequently fall into (there are a lot of male ‘wives’ in this story), is also used to cut off like sons from inheriting the family and the fortune, and even titles. Male ‘wives’ aren’t looked down upon in this setting, in fact, Han Zhang gets a lot of leeway as one, and in his case he was also able to rise up the ranks to be an actual official later on, but the sad thing comes from sons who are most of the time forced to marry a male ‘wife’ for whatever reason, and then they are neglected as the son goes and find concubines, women he actually wants to sleep with - this is sad af yall. I don’t know, on one hand, yay for equality in marriage in this setting, but on the other hand like, damn, must you use same-sex marriage like that argh.

ANYWAY THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVES TOO?!!! I mean, especially when Jing Shao literally just goes into doting mode 200% and Han Zhang is totally like wtf why is he so nice to me is he scheming or something? And then he realizes that Jing Shao is really, really gentle towards him despite his reputation as a cruel, dark military commander, and Jing Shao always smiles at him. In any situation, especially in the beginning, when Han Zhang thought Jing Shao would not stand with him, Jing Shao literally just protects him no matter what, gives him everything, and cries, I love it. 

Especially because Han Zhang is the son of a concubine and he was bullied a lot in the Mu family, and the official Lady Mu married him off to Jing Shao in hopes that he would be unhappy for the rest of his life, and I suppose that came true in the first life, but in the second, Han Zhang gets all the love, respect and support he never got before in this family with Jing Shao and that makes me WEEP.

Available: Novel Online and Manhua on Kuaikan

4. 死亡万花筒 Kaleidoscope of Death by 西子绪

OOOH I intro-ed KOD here in my previous rec list. Still one of my faves and all-time re-reads, especially under the covers in the dark hehehe.

5. 你的距离 | Your Distance by 公子优 

Summary: Ting Shuang is a student at a German university, and has this handsome professor Bai Chang Yi who he swears kind of hates him. He’s just broken up with his longtime boyfriend, and then goes on this dating app that matches a profile with him based on distance. The app can also show the matched profile’s distance from him once they enter the same area, and Ting Shuang starts chatting with this Chinese guy on the app, who he finds out later, is 36 years old, 187cm in height and wears glasses. 

The guy is a little aloof and cool, very mature in his replies on the app, and somehow Bai Chang Yi finds out who he is later, as Ting Shuang starts complaining to him about his professor to Bai Chang Yi. Instead of getting angry and offended, BCY is pretty much amused and finds Ting Shuang cute. A few days later Ting Shuang finally realizes who it is he’s been texting, and after getting past the initial embarrassment and fear, they start dating for real, and they really fall in love!!!!! 

My Thoughts: This is sweet and also hilarious af, if you need to like satisfy your sweet tooth, this is definitely one for you. It’s really funny because Bai Chang Yi runs in the same circles as Ting Shuang’s dad, who he’s estranged from because the dad doesn’t want to recognize a son who is gay, and then BCY convinces him later in the funniest of ways, and there’s a small subplot at the end in which Ting Shuang is pretty cool, and yep, short and sweet! BCY in the manhua is handsome af too guys ;-;

Available: Novel Online, Audio Drama on Maoer FM and Manhua on Bilibili, 

6. 神木挠不尽 The White Cat’s Divine Scratching Post by 绿野千鹤

Summary: Mo Tian Liao, a weapons forger and master who ruled the Demon Tribe, was hunted down and killed by other righteous sects in the region when he managed to forge an incredibly destructive weapon that could end the world. Before he died, he placed the only thing he loved, a white cat, into a hole in the tree behind him to protect it. The only thing he was grateful for was that he did not create a blood pact with the cat, Xiao Mao, because if he had done so, when he died, Xiao Mao would have died along with him as well.

Right before he dies, unbeknownst to him, Xiao Mao who is no simple demonic cat, wraps part of his consciousness around Mo Tian Liao, and MTL’s spirit ends up floating about for 300 years, until he finds a suitable time to return with a body made out of a special tree and its wood. The first thing he does, of course, is to find his white cat, but he’s poor, and the body he has isn’t powerful, so he joins Wo Yun Sect, the only sect that did not hunt him down that day hundreds of years ago.

There, he is chosen by Qing Tong shizun to be his direct disciple, much to the astonishment of other shizuns in the sect, and Qing Tong’s shixiongs. MTL has never seen a person as beautiful and gorgeous as his shizun, and if only he could find that cat (who’s actually his shizun, who recognizes him and protects him, even if MTL doesn’t actually need much protection).

My Thoughts: This was hilarious as well, and so romantic?!!! Qing Tong/Xiao Mao waited for MTL to come back, and the moment he came back, Qing Tong was there ready to grab him, and then before he went to sleep that night, Qing Tong thought to himself, “I’ve gotten my person back, I can sleep well now” and AHHHHH at this point they weren’t even like a couple yet? MTL ‘kidnapped’ Qing Tong when he was a young demon cat by accident because he likes pretty things (like his shizun lmao) and Qing Tong is attached to him because MTL never forced a blood pact on him, and gave him everything he wanted as a younger cat before MTL died. Gosh, a mirror in #2 and then a cat now with this one. XD

Available: Novel Online

7. 破云 | Breaking the Clouds by 淮上

Summary: Three years ago, Captain Jiang Ting and his team of the Narcotics division perished in an explosion due to a wrong call of his, and he returns three years later under a new identity ready to deal with the people who set him and his team up. He’s caught in what seems to be a simple murder case almost immediately and meets Yan Xie, who’s Vice Captain and in charge of this case. Yan Xie realizes who Jiang Ting is shortly after, and begins to unravel the huge mystery surrounding the events of three years ago, and falls in love with Jiang Ting along the way as well.

My Thoughts: Okay out of the FOUR crime/detective/thriller danmei novels I’ve read, the poyun and tunhai (below) series is the one that MIRRORS actual narcotics division and undercovers the best. It has the complexity and depth of the drugs/narcotics world, and both this one and its sequel focuses a lot on the position of an undercover and mole. I liked this one a lot because there are SOOOO many twists especially in the last arc, like you honestly won’t see any of them coming until it hits you? And Yan Xie is such a confident, rich-ass narcissist, and he keeps asking Jiang Ting if he can “just touch” him ONCE lmao, he’s thick-skinned af, but that’s why he and Jiang Ting are so compatible ;-;.

Available: Novel Online, Novel Print, Audio Drama and Manhua on Bilibili

8. 吞海 | Swallowing the Sea by 淮上

Summary: Sequel to Po Yun. Yu Wu is a young-looking new detective under Captain Bu Chong Hua’s narcotics team. Bu Chong Hua is Yan Xie’s cousin by actual relation, but brother in relationship because BCH’s parents died early and Yan Xie’s parents have been taking care of him mostly. He cannot stand Yu Wu, who seems to want to coast through at work and keep to a 9-5 work schedule. 

It’s only after an altercation and Yu Wu dumping his nonchalant facade to snarl at BCH that he realizes that YW is actually more interesting and mysterious than he thought, and he begins to try to get close to him, understand him. It turns out that Yu Wu is a famous undercover who nearly died a year ago during an operation, and due to various reasons, he was assigned to BCH’s team by higher ups so he can peacefully live the rest of his life out there. However, his past catches up with him quickly, and his enemies turning up forces him to rely on BCH. 

With BCH, Yu Wu’s resentment of having to be an undercover in the past and being so easily discarded by his team’s leaders, and of him being forced to be in the shadows while others can announce their achievements to the world, is slowly erased, because BCH sees him, knows him, and understands him more than anyone else.

My Thoughts: I actually liked this one better than the first one - Yu Wu is such a pouty, angry little thing?! And for good reason (there’s a bit of cannibalism in the book, not by choice when he was younger and in a poor village in Cambodia, where some militants forced survivors in the village to eat the meat of boiled corpses of other villagers, so YW is a vegetarian, like if he eats meat he gets really sick) and the twists here are even more amazing?! BCH really, really, devotes himself to YW the moment he realizes how much he likes him, doing a 180 degree turn. Instead of Yan Xie’s flamboyance, BCH is much steadier, grouchy, like an old uncle, but also looks at things even more clearly than Yan Xie does sometimes. Yu Wu is understandably bitter about what he had to go through, and BCH is the ONLY person who can calm him down, whom he listens to, which I LOVE. Some highlights:

Yu Wu grew up in a poor village and thus loves money, and he fights in underground betting rings to earn more money - The stash of hidden money he collects I think is half for his escape money, but if he happens to never need it, his dream is to donate the money to his village so they can open up a school there - ANYWAY because Yan Xie’s parents, and technically BCH’s ‘parents’ are soooooo rich right, Yan Xie’s mom shows her approval to her son-in-laws (Jiang Ting first, then Yu Wu), by giving them winter pants. It’s kind of like inside warmers, and usually meant for older ladies to wear LOLOL so Yu Wu was like staring at the pants when he finally got them and looked soooo reluctant until Jiang Ting told him it costs $6,000 AND HE WAS LIKE :333333 okie

He acts a lot like a kid?!! He likes eating like some snack but it’s really unhealthy for him, and BCH the mother hen keeps catching him in weird places like the toilet, where he’s hiding from BCH so he can eat his fave snack?! And the whole police station knows not to give YW what he wants in terms of snacks and smokes because once BCH finds out, he makes life very difficult for them HAHAHAHA

9. 穿成反派如何活命 | How to Survive as A Villain by 伊依以翼

Summary: Rich and handsome CEO Xiao Yu An finds out he has a terminal illness (cancer), and dies while he’s reading this online novel, where a king mistreats the crown prince from a neighbouring state which sent him over as hostage after losing a war, and ends up being killed by the crown prince years later (SVSSS much?!). He wakes up AS THE KING, and afraid of dying, he immediately goes about befriending the prince, Yan He Qing. Yan He Qing falls in love with Xiao Yu An while being his friend/hostage/bodyguard, and Xiao Yu An tries to avoid all the deaths he read in the book, while making sure Yan He Qing manages to find his three/four wives, including Xiao Yu An’s sister.

Of course, because Xiao Yu An showed him warmth and kindness, Yan He Qing ends up falling for him instead, and Xiao Yu An is an absolute oblivious idiot because he REALLY doesn’t realize until much later. Yan He Qing ends up declaring war on Xiao Yu An’s kingdom because he is duty bound to do so, but doesn’t hurt Xiao Yu An, wanting to keep him by his side, but YHQ’s scheming uncle drives a wedge between them, and XYA leaves, breaking YHQ’s heart.

They meet again a few years later, where XYA is training to be a physician in a small village and chances upon a severely injured YHQ. There, he realizes that it was all a misunderstanding, and that YHQ actually LIKES, LIKES him, but before they can enjoy this short period of happiness, disaster strikes again.

My Thoughts: THIS WAS really enjoyable, and with the manhua visuals, it is *chef’s kiss*. I think this transmigration version actually delved into the part where XYA is unable to change everything, and if he saves one person, someone else is destined to die, and that moral dilemma devastates him a lot. In this novel he actually transmigrates TWICE, once into the king’s body, and the second time into a neighbouring state’s prince/king’s body, who looks exactly like his modern self after. YHQ is real sweet to him istg, and I like that the epilogues are SUPER EXTENSIVE, including an arc where YHQ and XYA transmigrate back to the real world and everyone who died is alive and close to them, and gets their happy ending ;-;

Available: Novel Online and Manhua on Bilibili

Top 10 Horror Movies, like, EVER (reissued)

10.  THE MIST

In 2007, writer/director Frank Darabont once again proved he does his best work when adapting master of literary horror Stephen King (after The Green Mile and solid gold masterpiece The Shawshank Redemption), this time turning to pure horror with one of the author’s lesser-known early novellas.  The result is another tour-de-force cinematic blueprint, a taut, harrowing tale of humanity pushed far beyond the brink by unexplained supernatural events and the monstrous lengths normal people will go to to stay alive, as a small-town New England supermarket is cut off from the outside world by a mysterious, monster-filled mist.  The Expanse’s Thomas Jane proves a complex hero, beefy yet vulnerable as local artist David Drayton, leading a high-calibre cast of Stephen King-movie/TV regulars – Jeffrey DeMunn (The Green Mile), Andre Braugher (Salem’s Lot), William Sadler (The Shawshank Redemption) and Frances Sternhagen (Misery) – and “newcomers” – Laurie Holden (who must have really impressed Darabont, since he subsequently cast her alongside DeMunn in The Walking Dead), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s Toby Jones (as one of the most unorthodox action heroes in cinematic history) and Miller’s Crossing’s Marcia Gay Harden, pretty much stealing the film as deeply unhinged Bible-basher Mrs Carmody, who goes from unsavoury town nut to fervent cult leader as the situation grows increasingly desperate.  Darabont once again proves what an exceptional screen storyteller he can be, effortlessly weaving an atmosphere of mounting dread and knife-edge tension, as well as delivering some nightmarish set-pieces featuring magnificent Lovecraft-inspired beasties designed by The Walking Dead’s creature effects master Greg Nicotero.  When cinematic horror was becoming increasingly saturated with “gorno” Saw-derivatives, this was a welcome return to old-fashioned monster movie thrills (Darabont himself was heavily inspired by the monochrome scary movies of his childhood, and longed to make the film in black-and-white – indeed, this is definitely worth watching at least once in the “director’s cut” B&W version he included on the special edition DVD release), and not only proved one of the best examples of King on screen to date, but also one of THE key horror movies of the “Noughties”. Not least thanks to that ending, one of the greatest sucker punch twists of all time – reputedly King was most envious of Darabont on seeing it for the first time, wishing he’d thought it up himself. Coming from the King of Horror, that’s high praise indeed.

9.  30 DAYS OF NIGHT

When Steve Niles, the undisputable master of post-modern horror comics, originally came up with the concept for his definitive work, it was intended for the big screen, but he ultimately wound up committing it to print because he just couldn’t get anyone to produce it.  Interesting, then, that the comic’s runaway success led to its optioning by Sam Raimi and his production company Ghost House Pictures, Niles adapting the first volume alongside Stuart Beattie and Brian Nelson, with Hard Candy director David Slade at the helm. Of course, the concept was always a killer – for one month every year, the sun never rises over the Alaskan town of Barrow, a fact that a coven of hungry vampires have decided to exploit in a midwinter free-for-all feeding frenzy.  Josh Hartnett manfully crumbles in what remains his best role as town sheriff Eben Olemaun, ably supported by Melissa George as his estranged fire-marshal wife Stella, Memento/Batman Begins’ Mark Boone Junior as hard-as-nails town loner Bo, Ben Foster (one of my very favourite actors) as a mysterious drifter with a dark agenda, and Danny Huston, who created one of the best ever screen vampires with nihilistic pack leader Marlow. It’s ironic that David Slade should have followed this with Twilight film Eclipse (although he was an inspired choice – after all, it’s the one that DOESN’T suck) – this is about as far removed from the toothless, blood-lite young adult series as you can get, an unrelenting, gore-drenched exercise in relentless carnage and ice-cold terror.  These vamps wouldn’t be caught (ahem) dead sparkling – they’re man-shaped mako sharks, all dead black eyes and jagged teeth, gleefully revelling in slaughter and playing sadistic games of cat and mouse with the isolated townsfolk.  This is definitely not a movie for the faint of heart, and it takes itself deadly seriously right through the unapologetically bleak ending, but it is nonetheless an endlessly rewarding thrill ride for the faithful, paying respect to all the great conventions of the genre while simultaneously ripping them to shreds.  Brutal, bloody and brilliant, this is BAR NONE the best vampire movie of the post-Interview age, and very nearly my all-time favourite EVER ...

8. POLTERGEIST

1982 saw the release of TWO of my all-time fave horror movies, and the lesser (but no less awesome) of the two is what I personally consider to be THE DEFINITIVE haunted house movie.  Tobe Hooper, director of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, pretty much reinvented ghosts on the big screen with this thrilling tale of a small-town-American family, the Freelings, whose seemingly perfect home comes under the influence of a powerful supernatural force.  At first the effects are harmless – moving furniture and the like – until a night-time thunderstorm signals a terrifying escalation and younger daughter Carol-Anne (Heather O’Rourke) is sucked through a portal into the spirit world.  Long before he was the dad in The Incredibles, Craig T. Nelson had already become a pretty definitive cuddly American screen father as Steven Freeling, while JoBeth Williams is a lioness defending her cubs as mother Diane; then-newcomer Heather O’Rourke, meanwhile, is a naturalistic revelation as Carol-Anne, her innocent delivery of “They’re here!” becoming a genuine geek phenomenon all on its own, but the film’s real runaway performance comes from Zelda Rubinstein as diminutive Southern belle psychic medium Tangina Barrons, whose every screen moment is a quirky joy.  As you’d expect, Hooper’s scares are flawlessly executed, the atmospheric tension ratcheted with consummate skill, even if the director’s characteristic gore is kept to a PG-13-friendly minimum ... then again, this was a summer offering from Back to the Future producers Frank Marshall and Steven Spielberg himself, who was also the main screenwriter. Indeed, his influence is keenly felt throughout – the suburban world the Freelings inhabit is very much in keeping with Spielberg classics like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. – and there have been consistent rumours that he was all but the de-facto director on set.  The film (along with its sequels) has also gained a reputation for being cursed, with no less than FOUR cast members dying not long after (most notably Dominique Dunne, who played elder Freeling daughter Dana, who was murdered by her boyfriend just five months after the film’s release).  Whatever the truth behind these rumours, there’s no denying this is a cracking film – taut, atmospheric and consistently terrifying while also displaying a playful, quirky sense of humour and lots of heart, it remains one of the most rewarding and entertaining screen ghost stories around.

7.  BUBBA HO-TEP

Bruce Campbell is Elvis Presley!  He really is!  Although maybe he isn’t ... all right, TECHNICALLY he’s Sebastian Haff, a washed-up, long-retired Elvis impersonator languishing in a retirement home who claims he really IS the King (apparently he swapped places with the REAL Haff because he’d grown tired of fame).  Meanwhile one of his fellow residents is an old black man who claims he’s the real JFK, maintaining that President Lyndon Johnson had him dyed black and secreted in anonymity with a bag of sand sewn into the gap in his brain ... confused yet? Well hold on, cuz there’s more – the retirement home in question has been invaded by the malevolent spirit of a cursed soul-sucking mummy, and only these two fallen heroes can save the day ... yup, writer/director Don (Phantasm and John Dies At the End) Coscarelli’s initially criminally overlooked but deservedly seriously cult adaptation of Joe R. Lansdale’s novel is as typically oddball as the rest of his filmography.  It’s also his most moving and spiritual work to date – behind all the supernatural weirdness and quirky, offbeat humour this is a deeply-affecting meditation on the pains of growing old and losing your place in the world.  Bruce Campbell’s Elvis/Haff is a tragic hero, regretting his current lot and pining for former glories, but he still has the odd little twinkle of his former charm and bravado (particularly during his interactions with his nurse, played with spiky gutsiness by Ella Joyce), while screen legend Ossie Davis is stately and charismatic as “the former President Kennedy”, even when he sounds REALLY crazy.  Meanwhile the creature, “Bubba Ho-Tep” himself (Bob Ivy), is a fantastically weird creation, Coscarelli’s skilful use of atmospherics elevating him far above the “guy-in-a-suit” effects – he’s mean, cranky, and just as strong a character as his flesh-and-blood counterparts.  Coscarelli really let rip on this one – it’s chock-full of his characteristic leftfield comic-scariness (Elvis/Haff’s early encounter with one of the mummy’s scarab familiars is a particular zany gem), visually inventive and frequently laugh-out-loud hilarious, but in the end plays out on such a heartfelt, genuinely powerful and moving denouement that you can’t help getting a lump in your throat, even while it is one of those movies that leaves you with a big dumb goofy grin on your face.  It’d be pretty sweet if Coscarelli and his mate Paul Giamatti ever get their long-gestating “prequel” Bubba Nosferatu: Curse of the She-Vampires off the ground, but this is one that you can’t help loving all on its own.  See this if you’re a Coscarelli fan – it’s his best work to date – see this if you love quirky, unusual and original horror ... hell, see this if you love MOVIES. This is a true GEM, not to be missed.

6.  DOG SOLDIERS

My favourite werewolf movie is also easily one of the most offbeat – think The Howling meets Assault On Precinct 13 and you’re pretty close to the mark.  Before visionary British horror director Neil Marshall had his big break with masterpiece The Descent, he made an impressive cult splash with his feature debut, a fiendish comedy horror in which a six-man British Army unit on training manoeuvres in the wilds of Scotland stumbles upon a pack of hungry werewolves and are forced to take shelter in an isolated cottage.  With their ammo dwindling and their weapons largely ineffective against the monsters (not a silver bullet between them, of course), it doesn’t look likely that ANY of will survive the night ... setting the humour dial for JET BLACK, Marshall keeps the atmosphere tense and the substantial gore flying (I was amazed when I saw this in the cinema that it was only a 15 – even just ten years earlier stuff like this was GUARANTEED a solid 18 certificate), while the squaddies are a likeably foul-mouthed bunch with a winning, sometimes enjoyably geeky line in spiky banter (Marshall makes frequent references to everything from Star Trek and The Evil Dead to The Matrix and, in one of my favourite nods, Zulu).  Trainspotting’s Kevin McKidd is brawny but enjoyably self-deprecating as nominal hero Cooper, Sean (son of Doctor Who Jon) Pertwee gives great earthy-shoutiness as Sgt. Wells, Darren Morfitt consistently steals the film as mouthy little bugger “Spoon” (short for Witherspoon), and Game Of Thrones star Liam Cunningham injects a strong dose of dark and dangerous as Captain Ryan, the special forces operative with a sinister plan, while Emma Cleasby is far from just a token female as zoologist Megan, who came to Scotland in search of the legend and seems to have found a whole lot more than she bargained for – she’s smart, tough and flat-out refuses to be a love interest, and definitely proved a good trial run for Marshall’s all-female cast in The Descent.  It’s impressively paced – after an initial character-driven set-up so we can get to know the lads (including a fun little scare-on-top-of-a-laugh moment), the action kicks in fast and rarely lets up for the rest of the film’s tightly-packed 105 minute running time.  The set pieces are thrilling and frequently fun (particularly Spoon’s ballsy little distraction technique), and the werewolves are impressively brought to life through physical animatronics created by Image FX (the Hellraiser effects team!) and a talented troupe of stilt-walking stunt performers – no cheesy CGI here!  Altogether it marked a blinding debut for a singular, visionary sci-fi/horror talent who’s still making his presence felt – Doomsday was a delightfully old-school slice of super violent sci-fi in the John Carpenter vein, while tight, gruesome little Roman-era suspense thriller Centurion proved that a historical epic doesn’t have to be 2+ hours long with a big budget to impress, and Marshall continues to garner real acclaim through his extensive TV work on the likes of Game of Thrones. That said, I can’t wait for him to return to the big screen, preferably with more dark, edgy, blood-soaked fun like this ...

5. TREMORS

I’ve always had something of a bias towards horror movies that are also comedies, or at least that have a strong sense of humour throughout, and when it comes to funny horror movies, this brilliant throwback to cheesy 1950s monster movies is KING, baby!  While it snuck in under the radar on its 1990 release, director Ron Underwood’s sleeper universally wowed critics, word of mouth helping it to become an impressive cult smash once it hit home video ... which meant I saw it at JUST the right time, the film quickly becoming a firm fixture in my favourites lists and a major milestone in my own geek development.  The premise is simplicity itself – giant underground worms with tentacles in their mouths terrorise an isolated desert community – but underneath the goofy concept is a surprisingly sophisticated movie that continues to influence filmmakers today.  Kevin Bacon was in a bit of a career slump at the time (Footloose had been SO LONG before), but this gave him both the shot in the arm he needed and one of his most memorable roles ever – odd-jobbing slacker Val McKee, who has to get off his arse and think big to beat the beasties; Fred Ward is the perfect foil as Val’s crotchety “business” partner Earl Basset, while Finn Carter is thoroughly lovable as scientist Rhonda LeBeck, a no-nonsense smart girl who can go toe-to-toe with the boys (and manages to lose her pants WITHOUT losing her credibility), but the film is consistently stolen by Family Ties star Michael Gross as tightly wound survivalist Burt Gummer – this might be Bacon’s movie, but Gross is the real star, deservedly becoming the driving force of the film’s various sequels AND the spinoff TV series.  The film opens with a killer of a funny line, starting as it means to go on – frequently hilarious and smart as a whip, consistently defying character and genre tropes and wrong-footing the viewer almost a decade before Joss Whedon started doing the same with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, all the while balancing the belly laughs with some genuinely scary set pieces.  The worms themselves (or “Graboids”, if you want to get specific) are spectacular creations, some of the most original movie monsters out there, and they still stand up well today, just like the rest of the film.  A cornerstone of the genre that wins over new fans with each generation, this is one of those films that deserves to be remembered for a very long time, and looks set to do just that. 

4.  EVIL DEAD 2: DEAD BY DAWN

Nobody does screen chaos like Sam Raimi, particularly when it comes to his horror offerings – still his first and purest love. His original debut feature The Evil Dead is rightly considered the DEFINITIVE indie horror, and to this day remains the standard blueprint for all young, aspiring directors starting out in the genre ... it’s also a work of pure, unadulterated MADNESS once it gets going.  Raimi upped the ante with this part-remake, part-sequel, the increased budget and proper studio resources meaning he could REALLY let his imagination run riot, and the results are a cavalcade of tongue-clean-THROUGH-cheek, jet black comedic insanity that STILL has yet to be equalled.  Bruce Campbell returns as unlikely “hero” Ash Williams, thoroughly out of his depth and failing miserably to hold it together as the ancient tome of evil itself, the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis (“Book of the Dead”), unleashes a horde of undead demons on the isolated forest cabin he’s brought his girlfriend to.  Wildly expanding on the supernatural back-story of his original, Raimi and co-writer Scott Spiegel also ramped up the humour, playing the horror on the blackest edge they can, albeit cut with a hefty dose of Tex Avery – Ash’s battle with his own possessed, eventually severed hand is like some demented skit out of The Three Stooges, while the absolute comedic highlight is the ridiculously over-the-top “laughing room” sequence, in which the seemingly inanimate objects in the cabin suddenly come to life and begin to taunt Ash; add in the great wealth of re-view-friendly visual in-jokes scattered throughout and this remains Raimi’s FUNNIEST film to date. Campbell clearly had a ball, throwing himself into the action with everything he had, and he’s ably supported by a meaty (ahem) cast that includes a very pre-Slither Dan Hicks as a seriously scuzzy redneck and Raimi’s own brother Ted, virtually unrecognisable as one of the maniacal Deadites (“I’ll swallow your soul!”).  The creature effects from the great Greg Nicotero still stand up spectacularly well today (they remain some of his very best work), from hideous gurning beasts to insane fountains of blood, while Raimi’s direction is pitch-perfect, playing the humour beautifully while still (sometimes simultaneously) building up a near-unbearable atmosphere of unholy dread, and the climax is ingenious, beautifully setting things up for the enjoyably madcap trilogy-closer Army of Darkness: the Medievil Dead.  Raimi has finally brought the trilogy the follow-up fans had been waiting decades for with the fantastically bonkers Ash Vs. the Evil Dead series, but this delirious masterpiece remains the franchise’s zenith.  Groovy ...

3.  JAWS

It may be the oldest film on this list (released in 1975, it’s THREE YEARS OLDER than I am!), but Steven Spielberg’s breakthrough feature has aged incredibly well.  Indeed, it almost single-handedly changed the face of big budget cinema, establishing the idea of tent-pole summer blockbusters and blanket-bombardment advertising campaigns (in particularly it was one of the first to make heavy use of television to drum up excitement and interest), ultimately taking over $400,000,000 on its original release (the equivalent of multi-billion big earners like Avatar today) and paving the way for Star Wars two years later.  Not to mention the film’s famous negative effect on beach-going for years after ... but under all that there’s a magnificent, masterfully-crafted film, still (rightly) considered one of the director’s best.  The plot may be ridiculously simple – New England beach-community Amity Island is terrorised by a man-eating Great White shark – but there’s a stealthily subversive story here, taking old genre conventions and twisting them in new, unexpected directions (which would, ironically, form a template for a great many later horror movies); while the first hour is a slow-burn thriller, the second is more like a light-hearted nautical action adventure with added scares. The French Connection’s Roy Scheider virtually CREATED the everyman-out-of-his-depth hero with his portrayal of Amity police chief Martin Brody, a former New York cop who’s terrified of the water, Richard Dreyfuss is lovable comedic gold as rich kid marine biologist Matt Hooper, Lorraine Gary did a lot with very little as Brody’s wife Ellen, and Robert Shaw effortlessly steals the film as shark hunter Quint, a ferocious, scenery-chewing force of nature in the mould of Moby Dick’s Captain Ahab.  The film is immensely rich in great character moments, from Hooper’s rib-tickling arrival on the island and the dialogue-free moment Brody shares with his younger son Sean, to the undeniable high point of the film, where a humorous comparison of scars (which has itself become a popular homage-magnet in film and TV) leads to Quint chilling account of his wartime experience onboard the U.S.S. Indianapolis (the ship transporting the Hiroshima atomic bomb which was torpedoed in the Pacific, leading to over a thousand stranded sailors being eaten alive by sharks); indeed, this is one of Spielberg’s most well-written films, sitcom writer Carl (The Odd Couple) Gottlieb’s polish of author Peter Benchley’s adaptation of his own original novel still zipping and zinging today, although some of the best dialogue was derived from the actors’ own on-set improvisations (most famously Scheider’s now-legendary “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”).  It’s also one of his most well-directed, with near-hypnotic tricks in editing and bold, adventurous choices in atmosphere-building, often a result of the shoot’s infamous difficulties – the animatronic shark (affectionately named “Bruce” by the director, and “the Great White Turd” by the crew) created by Bob Mattley (the guy who did the giant squid in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) was impressive when it worked, but this was so rarely that the director had to devise several means of creating maximum tension WITHOUT showing the shark, which ultimately ADDS to the effectiveness of those scenes, particularly the “barrel-chasing” in the second half.  None of these tricks, however, work better than the score from Spielberg’s most faithful collaborator, John Williams, based around a deceptively simple four-note melody that evolves into something spectacularly evocative, which has rightly become the film’s most iconic element.  Humorous, intriguing, intense and still thoroughly terrifying when it wants to be, this is, bar-none, the finest man-versus-nature horror EVER MADE, and surely always will be.

2.  NEAR DARK

I’m a fool for vampires (much like I’m a fool for redheads, but that’s a whole other conversation), so bloodsucker horror is one of my very favourite sub-genres.  I’m also a big fan of Kathryn Bigelow – two of her most recent features, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, both pinged VERY LOUDLY on my radar (the former is my favourite war movie of the current decade), while her collaboration with then husband James Cameron, Strange Days (he wrote, she directed), rates high on my list of criminally underrated screen gems.  So what do you think happened when she made a vampire movie?  The results SHOULD have become one of the most celebrated and legendary features in the genre ... except that it came out in October 1987, two months after the admittedly cool and fun but far more glossy and dumb The Lost Boys.  Needless to say in the wake of that, Bigelow’s film got kind of lost in the back chatter, nearly flopping at the box office and all but vanishing into obscurity ... until its subsequent release on video (quite rightly) earned it an impressive cult following.  Myself included, because this movie is RIGHT UP my dark and dangerous alley.  Collaborating with The Hitcher’s screenwriter Eric Red, Bigelow crafted a (largely) deadly serious modern day supernatural “western”, in which cocky farm-boy Caleb Colton (Heroes’ Adrian Pasdar) hits on cute drifter Mae (Jenny Wright, probably best known for her supporting turn in Young Guns 2), only to get WAY more than he bargained for when her kiss leaves him with a crippling hunger and one serious tanning problem.  Pasdar’s all-knowing youthful swagger disintegrates as he tumbles further down the vampiric rabbit hole, while Wright’s fragile beauty compliments her character’s deep, soulful melancholy – the pair make for a compelling, tragic romantic centre anchoring the horrors that unfold as Caleb begins to lose himself to his burgeoning nature; even so, the true dark and twisted soul of the film lies with Mae’s predatory nomad “family” – Lance Henriksen is the definitive “dark father” as nihilistic pack leader Jesse Hooker, while his Aliens co-star Jenette Goldstein is his perfect mate as punk rock femme fatale Diamondback, and Joshua John Miller excels as Homer, the bitter old man trapped in a child’s body ... meanwhile Bill Paxton consistently steals the film as mad dog Severen, chewing the scenery to splinters with gleeful, feral aplomb and stealing all the best lines.  It’s a potent, heady ride, taking itself pretty seriously throughout but deriving a subtle, inky black sense of gallows humour from the situation, and the set-pieces are intense and thrilling (particularly the shootout in a roadside motel at dawn, where shafts of sunlight become as lethal as bullets).  At times it’s also powerful, soulful and bleakly beautiful, Bigelow’s heavily stylised visuals brilliantly augmented by the spiky electronic score from Tangerine Dream. It also subverts the classic vampire conventions with great skill and originality, with nary a cross, coffin or even fang in sight.  Like 30 Days of Night, this is the perfect antidote for anyone suffering from Twilight-overload – the monster can be quite interesting when he’s the hero, but he’s just so much more fun when he’s the bad guy ...

1.  JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING

While I’m sure many will think I’m mad for preferring this over Carpenter’s other seminal horror classic Halloween, this one’s much more my speed, a perfect exercise in sustained tension, paranoia and white-knuckle terror. Critically mauled and under-performing on its release (it was labelled by many as a sort of “anti-E.T.: the Extraterrestrial”, which came out two weeks earlier ... and interestingly this opened the same day as Blade Runner!), it nonetheless became a massive cult hit now rightly considered one of the true DEFINITIVE horror movies.  Faithfully adapting John Campbell, Jr.’s novella Who Goes There? (certainly more so than Howard Hawks’ admittedly entertaining but ultimately very kitsch The Thing From Another World), it revolves around the all-male crew of U.S. research station 4, Outpost 31, in Antarctica, who come under threat from a body-snatching alien entity that can perfectly imitate its victims after investigating the mysterious destruction of a neighbouring Norwegian facility.  Carpenter regular Kurt Russell (Escape From New York, Big Trouble In Little China) is at his gruff best as helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady, the taciturn blue-collar Joe called upon to play “hero”, Keith David (Pitch Black, Carpenter’s They Live) angrily flexes his acting and physical muscles as hot-tempered researcher Childs, Donald Moffat crumbles as ineffectual station commander Garry, and screen legend Wilford Brimley effortlessly makes the exposition compelling as tightly-wound biologist Blair.  The freezing Antarctic atmosphere perfectly complements the razor-edged suspense, the idea that ANYONE could be the creature lending every scene a palpable sense of implied threat, while the science of the fiction is thankfully largely put on the back-burner in favour of the story and scares; meanwhile there’s a cheeky edge of jet black humour throughout, from the scuttling disembodied head to Garry’s explosive reaction to MacReady’s improvised humanity-test.  Rob (The Howling, Robocop, Fight Club) Bottin’s fantastically nightmarish creature effects are a magnificent achievement, still looking as good today as they did back in 1982, while master composer Ennio Morricone’s subtle, atmospheric score is a triumph of creepy, insidious subliminal effect.  For me, this film is the definition of fear – the idea that the threat could be literally ANYONE, that you could even become that yourself, be taken over completely, body and soul, is absolutely terrifying, and Carpenter executes this potential reality with surgical precision from the intriguing, icy start to the bleak, desolate ending.  Perfect.

Unorganised thoughts on Silver Snow:

When I finished Golden Deer, I said that it had felt like a more traditional Fire Emblem story than Blue Lions. Silver Snow is that but even more so (though GD is still the most trad-FE cast, IMO)

Having already played those two routes, it felt very much like a whirlwind tour of them both, plus another battle thrown in at the end - a battle that probably should have been harder, but I (completely accidentally) built the bulkiest Byleth imaginable, especially resistance wise, plus high magic - and so, by pairing high defensive stats with Nosferatu, I tanked every attack that came my way 

Gaming, for me, is just doing whatever the hell I feel like, stumbling into good results, and then pretending that I did it on purpose

I spent the whole battle with the Dragon Tales theme song stuck in my head. Kind of killed the mood

I really enjoyed that after wrapping up both the Edelgard and TWSITD plots, they basically Persona 4 you by trying to convince you that the whole game’s done now and all that’s left is to chat with everyone - though unlike in P4, there’s very obviously something left to do because they give you a whole month of prep time, rather than just one day

I felt the same way about this on Golden Deer - none of the characters are appropriately shocked by Rhea’s highly questionable actions 

Also - she says she’s going to explain the whole truth! And she doesn’t! Only the Byleth creation stuff! The other revelations from Golden Deer are missing! Rhea! Why! Are! You! Like! This!

This is actually a problem I have with this game as a whole - they want to keep certain lore and secrets exclusive to certain routes, but it results in every story feeling in some way incomplete. Like, Fates gets a lot of crap, but at least you did get a full story from your half (third? never played Revelation) a game for the price of a whole one. Blue Lions gets the worst of it, I think 

Plus, when you know some of said secrets, it makes characters who refuse to share them in other routes seem weirdly (and sometimes, contrivedly) cagey about things they really do not need to be cagey about. See: Claude refusing to tell Dimitri and Byleth in Azure Moon that he wants to End Racism, and instead vagueing about ‘achieving his dream’. This is not Edelgard wanting to conquer Fodlan and dismantle the entire social structure, Claude, your ideals really are not so controversial that you need to be this coy. Dimitri and I are cool, we getcha 

My one sentence review of the whole game is basically: Great characters, great world building, great gameplay - but really, really frustrating plot structure

I’m also really upset that Seteth does not have a dragon form

Speaking of Seteth, I married him this time around. I mostly decided to do it for laughs, but while Byleth/Dedue is still my number one Byleth pairing, I came to really, genuinely like them together. Seteth is one of my favs, now more than ever

It helps that romancing Seteth feels a lot less... creepy than romancing most of the students. I like Linhardt, but romancing him felt very weird to me because I couldn’t get over Byleth having first known him as a 16 year old under their care. Dedue, for the record, doesn’t elicit this response  because he doesn’t really feel as much like a student to me? Role-wise he feels a lot closer to the knights, and it’s just that he's been enrolled as a student for convenience’s sake, which makes him and Byleth feel more equal than they do with most of the other kids. Helps that he’s also on the older end

Anyway, Seteth and Byleth would be the nerdiest couple ever, is the impression I got from their ending. The confession scene made me laugh in how ‘oh we’ve got a lot of work to do - btw wanna get married? - sweet, now let’s get back to work’ it was. Mark Whitten is a gem

It’s also the the first time I felt like the game was actually shipping me with a main lord (Seteth taking that role in the absence of the box lords on this route). Haven’t done Crimson Flower yet, so no opinion on the Edelgard/Byleth relationship yet, but regarding Claude and Dimitri my (pretty damn controversial, possibly a bad idea to put out there) opinions on them with Byleth are that

Claude and Byleth are platonic bros, regardless of Byleth’s gender. I just don’t get any feeling of romance from their relationship at all, and so pairing them off feels weird (to me, personally - I don’t hate the ship or anything, though)

Meanwhile Dimitri 100% had a crush on his teacher at school, but after more than five years of enduring trauma after trauma, and then half a year of beginning to heal (whilst fighting a war culminating in the execution of his step-sister), Dimitri is nowhere near ready for a romantic relationship. And when he is, I wouldn’t want him with any of the main cast, Dimitri x Village Girl OTP. I guess if it has to be anyone, I’d be okay with Mercedes, maybe Marianne - hell, maybe even Claude - but really, I just want him to get a fresh start. I think that’s the healthiest option for him, in the end

I do think it’s a pairing that could work in an AU where Dimitri doesn’t have any of the experiences he has in canon, though 

And again, this is just my personal reading

I’ll also admit that I may be influenced by the fact that his two most popular pairings are with Byleth and Dedue, who I greatly prefer with each other. Mostly because I love Dedue with all my soul and his ending with Byleth is by far his happiest, in my eyes at least. It’s the only one where he puts some distance between himself and Dimitri and evens out the power balance in their relationship, which makes me happy because oh boy, the Dimitri/Dedue relationship is super interesting and compelling, but also (again, by my reading) all kinds of unhealthy as it’s presented for most of the game - power balance issues like I say, the fact that they tend to indulge, even encourage, each other’s worst instincts and behaviours, mutual guilt complexes - like I say, it’s fascinating, but damn screwed up. IMO, they’re one of the best examples I’ve seen of how unhealthy relationships aren’t always the result of one bad person, and how two good people can end up being very bad for each other

Though it is, again, a pairing I can see working (and actually being incredibly cute) in an AU where they’ve lived less horrible lives

And it’s not like I don’t want them to be friends, I just want them to also develop healthier boundaries and equal levels of respect

oh my god none of this has anything to do with silver snow what am I doing

But hey, speaking of Dimitri - I flip flopped on whether I thought his death was handled better or worse here than Golden Deer. It was given, I felt, more appropriate gravitas, but again suffered from ‘Dimitri’s dead! No, Dimitri’s alive! Oh wait, now he’s dead again’ in like, three successive scenes. And then you see his... ghost? I guess?

Dimitri really seems to get the short end of the stick on routes outside his own. Claude’s non-Deer roles were, in both cases I’ve played, much stronger and more fitting, and Edelgard is Edelgard

Maybe he’ll be good in Crimson Flower. Please. I miss Dimitri mattering. He’s probably my favourite of the three

There’s a point - obviously I don’t fully know Edelgard yet, but from what I got from the White Clouds section, above anything else she strikes me as an incredibly realistic depiction of a slightly edgy, extremely idealistic, but also highly naive and short-sighted teenager

Her whole goal, it seems, is meritocracy. She hates the crest system and the nobility, and she wants to create a system of equal opportunity. I can get behind that, but I really hope she’s prepared to accept the fact that true equal opportunity is basically impossible without recreating The Giver, as inequality is always more complex than one single factor being to blame for everything. Has Edelgard considered other limitations that make true meritocracy difficult to achieve? Has she been working on, say, a comprehensive benefits system? Or is she more of a libertarian type, and so primarily all about negative freedom and removing direct oppression? I hope Crimson Flower goes into detail on this, I’d be genuinely interested to know

I also find it interesting that she gets very angry about the fact that people hurt her and her family as a means to their own ends, so she decides that her own ends are to eliminate the system that lead to that happening - and she doesn’t care who she has to hurt in the process

This isn’t a CinemaSins *ding* plot hole observation, I genuinely think it’s interesting, and not actually that unrealistic

I also suppose her goal is no less naive than End All Racism By Being Nice To People, but Claude isn’t killing and persecuting people in attempt to achieve that, so it invites less scrutiny

I do wonder if I would have felt more strongly positively about her if she’d been my first playthrough. I do believe she’s a person that sincerely means well, and she’s certainly sympathetic, but - hmm. I’ll make my mind up when I finish CF

Anyway, paired endings. A few that I got include Raphael and Bernadetta (by far my favourite Bernie ending so far, seriously, what is that Caspar ending), Shamir and Leonie, which was cute and goofy (as Leonie’s endings tend to be, I notice, I do like that girl), Felix and Dorothea (not my favourite for either, but cute), Sylvain and Mercedes (the same but even cuter), Cyril and Petra (which felt wrong, partly because I love Cysithea a hell of a lot, and also because despite knowing there’s only about a year between them, Petra looks so much older pre-time skip), Ferdie and Marianne (super wholesome and sweet), and Linhardt and Caspar (my boyyyyssss that I refuse to ever separate again)

Not sure what I’m going to aim for on CF aside from keeping those boys together and also Ferdie/Hubert, as I’ve Heard Things

Flayn and Manuela have an A support so I figured they had a paired ending and it turns out they do not, which means Manuela was alone forever and Flayn ran away because apparently she hated having Byleth for a step mother I guess, rude

My Byleth (Myleth?) was prepared to be the best step mother in the history of the world, so offended

I realised ‘Javelins of Light’ is one of my absolute favourite tracks in the whole game. Mostly because it sounds like something out of Danganronpa, which made me nostalgic

I also like ‘Guardian of Starlight’ for somehow managing to sound like a Danganronpa/PMD: Explorers crossover track

I love how out of nowhere the Immaculate One fight is. It really does just feel like they needed something to distinguish the route from Verdant Wind outside of Claude not being around, so they just had a map that was less cool in every way except for the dragon

Is there an explanation for why Nemesis doesn’t show up on this route?

Also - I didn’t mention this in Golden Deer thoughts but I also found that final battle way, way easier than it was probably meant to be because I’d made everyone into a flier and so the floor damage hazard was meaningless

Which I totally did on purpose and not so I could make a stupid joke post about my all-wyvern team 

Anyway, in conclusion, Silver Snow was a good route, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would (I’d kind of thought it was just going to be GD without Claude, which isn’t... totally wrong, but it’s got some other stuff going on too), I liked Seteth getting to have a bigger role, I thought it had the best final boss (if not the best final boss map), and I liked that I got some more Dragon Lore (never a bad thing)

please don’t yell at me for my controversial shipping opinions 

Buying Engagement Rings in Melbourne

An engagement ring is the most important and nerve-wracking jewellery purchase in your life, as you attempt to search for the perfect display of your love towards your partner. An engagement ring is a symbol that you want to spend the rest of your life with someone and it represents the first step on your journey towards the beautiful bond of marriage. A ring with such importance comes with a sizeable dose of pressure, with the sheer number of different choices on the market, and a craving to choose the perfect one. However, with the significance of this ring and the price tag attached, it is important that you know exactly what you are looking for before setting off on your journey. At Janai, we believe it comes down to six important factors: shape, setting, metal, gemstone, size, and feeling.

To find the best Princess Cut Engagement Rings Melbourne for you and your partner, you need to take into account all six.

Engagement Ring Shape

As with any piece of jewellery, the shape is everything. After you have chosen your perfect gemstone, you must then pick the best shape to go with it. Luckily, there are plenty of options to choose from.

Round – The most iconic shape of all, featuring a cone with a rounded top and 58 reflective facets.

Princess – An iconic square with pointed corners.

Cushion – Much like the princess cut but with rounded corners.

Emerald – A rectangular cut with step-like facets. Works particularly well with high clarity stones.

Asscher – A cross between a princess cut and an emerald cut. Square shape with step-like facets.

Oval – As you can imagine, a gemstone cut into the shape of an oval with perfect symmetry.

Pear – Less like a pear and more like a teardrop, this cut has a rounded end that curves up into a point. Perfect for making smaller gemstones seem bigger than they are.

Marquise – Much like the pear cut but pointed at both ends with curved edges in between, said to be modelled on the smile of a woman.

Engagement Ring Setting

The setting of your chosen gemstone can have a huge impact on the overall look of the ring itself, so it’s important to look over some different options to find your favourite.

Halo – A halo setting for your angel. This type of ring features a halo of smaller gemstones surrounding the centre-piece to create a vintage style.

Cluster – One of the more elaborate and eye-catching choices, cluster settings trade in one main centre gemstone for a series of smaller stones all grouped together, like a bouquet of flowers.

Solitaire – The classic and most popular option. Solitaire engagement rings feature one single centre gemstone.

Three stone – Also known as a trilogy setting, this features three separate gemstones alongside each other on one ring. This is said to represent the past, present, and future of your relationship together.

Engagement ring metal

While the vast majority of people concentrate on the size and look of the stone when it comes to engagement rings, the metal used in the ring is just as important. Not only can the type of metal affect the overall price of the ring, but it is surprising how much of an impact it can have on the overall look and feel of the piece.

Platinum

Out of all precious metals used in engagement rings, platinum is both the rarest and the most luxurious option. While the metal can scratch, it will not lose any colour over time and it also offers a secure setting for your chosen stone. One of the most popular choices and offers a classic and classy feel.

White Gold

This metal offers a bright white finish to your ring, and is created by mixing yellow gold with metal alloys, which could include silver or platinum. White gold is known to go with diamond stones particularly well as the colour and shine complements the gem. White gold engagement rings are coated with rhodium to give them an attractive finish, but will need re-coating over time.

Yellow Gold

Also known as ‘gold’, this type of engagement rings has been one of the most popular throughout history, with the colour representing elegance, love, and luxury. Yellow gold engagement rings do not rust or corrode and is highly-reflective, which is why it is often paired up with diamond stones.

Rose Gold

A more modern style, rose gold offers a little something different away from the gold and silver engagement rings of this world. Rose gold is an alloy of yellow gold, with a higher percentage of copper added to achieve the pink finish. This creates a beautiful feminine and colourful ring, which is perfect for standing out in the crowd.

Engagement Ring Gemstone

When it comes to an engagement ring, the feature that often grabs the most attention is the choice of gemstone. While many people opt for the traditional and beautiful diamond, there are a host of other options in all kinds of colours.

Sapphire – Usually come in a gorgeous blue-purple colour, but can also be found in green, white, yellow, pink, and peach, Sapphires are often one-third of the price of a diamond and do not have the same sparkle to them, but they are equally beautiful in their own colourful way.

Ruby – One of the four precious stones, along with emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds. The iconic ruby red colour has long since been synonymous with love and marriage.

Tourmaline – The most popular variation is the light green tourmaline, with a slightly cloudy appearance which works particularly well on baroque or bohemian settings.

Emerald – Featuring an iconic and eye-catching green colour, emeralds are extremely popular in engagement rings.

Pink diamond – One of the most expensive diamonds on the market for a reason, the sparkling pink colour is sure to catch the eye.

Yellow diamond – Yellow diamonds boast one of the prettiest shines out of all gemstones on the market.

Engagement ring size

One of the most important aspects of engagement ring shopping is ensuring that it fits when you slip it onto your partner’s finger for the first time. Some ring designs cannot be resized after purchase, so it is important to get this right. Luckily, there are a number of ways to ensure that you get the perfect fit. If you are choosing your engagement rings together, then simply have your ring sizes measured in store. However, if you are keeping the ring a secret ahead of a proposal, the easiest way is to borrow one of their rings that you know fits well and have it measured. Alternatively, you can take your partner in to look at rings under the story that you are buying one for a family member’s birthday, and have them try on some options.

That feeling

Everyone wants the best engagement ring in Melbourne. No matter what the price, colour, stone, size, or cut, nothing can beat that first reaction and gut feeling. Once you see the perfect ring for you and your partner, you will know it. Always go with your heart, that’s the whole reason you need an engagement ring in the first place!

Why Janai?

Unfortunately, not everyone can be an expert on engagement rings, but luckily for you, that’s where Janai come in. We have over 35 years of experience in the industry and know the Melbourne engagement ring market like the back of our hands. Not only do you get unrivalled knowledge and expertise by contacting our dedicated customer service team, but we also provide quality craftsmanship and a vast array of choices to meet your specific engagement ring needs. Janai is your one-stop-shop for advice, information, and the ring of your dreams.

Book a consultation today call us on (03) 9662 1455

The Run Down on Clash Royale Win Revealed

Clash Royale doesn't lack tension. It is an amazing game and I love playing it. It is one of the most intriguing multiplayer, real-time games that are available today. It has been re-launched and this time it is available for your PCs as well. Everyone on Clash Royale makes a distinctive event challenge where you are able to have an opportunity to win legendary chests or cards. Rather than utilizing a hog rider you may also use a prince. Clans are likewise an essential part of the game, and joining one will be able to help you acquire cards a lot more easily. Players should consider the method by which they wish to generate a match. They can also invest real money but it's not imperative to do this. After a player is place into the game, it might take several seconds until the following one can be placed. Prove your skill and see whether you've got what it requires to be a Clash Royale pro player! Therefore, you can play this game with your buddies or family members. If you prefer to win this game, then you need to destroy your opponent tower so that you can just win this game. This game for this matter is developed by the very same group so the fundamental idea of the game is comparable. In Clash Royale, you can better your cards through using gold when you've reached a specific level. Not just that but likewise some cards enables you to unlock easily but some are not. So, no, currently it isn't feasible to max your cards without investing any actual money since it would take more than 5 decades. There are many kinds of cards are offered in the area. The other cards are excellent options to back up your push and the Minions will add some wonderful defense as well that it is possible to become a counter push also. There are those around who dislike downloading from Google Play Store whereas others keep facing technical issues when using Play Store and that is the reason why they search for third-party sources to obtain their favourite apps for free of charge. Their new 2V2 feature is totally ideal for team-playing! There's a distinctive feature which enables you to know the variety of people of the clan and how many are online at the present time. You may download the PC edition of this app employing the Bluestacks emulator free of charge speedily. This edition of Clash Royale APK present on our website is the hottest and authentic version since you can find on the Play Store. There are three major kinds of chests in Clash Royale. In addition, should you wish to acquire the completely free chests, then you need to wait 4 hours of time completely. Additionally, you find lots of ties in these normal matches simply since there's insufficient time for a single party to finish off one more Tower. Naturally, gold is the most important to collect, since it can help you to upgrade the troops in the game to a high degree. What's more, you'll also get plenty of gold for winning the challenges, if you're in arena 10 or arena 11. Moreover, with the assistance of the card, you can buy the gold from the shop. Moreover, visit the crown chest and the absolutely free chest if you would like to collect the gems. The Definitive Approach for Clash Royale Win

Be certain the clan is active, however, because clan wars are excellent for chests and growing together. There's just one general tactic that you'll need to follow, regardless of what deck you play and what challenge it is and that story is known as Better safe than sorry. As a rule of thumb the ideal time to get this done is when you're winning with 30 or less seconds left in the clock. The difficult part about challenges in Clash Royale is the very simple but also important truth you will want to devote Gems to enter. What's more, you can receive all these reward chests immediately with the assistance of the gems. Clash Royale Win Secrets That No One Else Knows About

One is going to be the most important tower called the King Tower. Then, repeat this until you've won the very first tower. It's essential to note that there's no ideal deck out there and no ideal tactic. You need to, therefore, be careful of any promises of totally free jewels in exchange for your account info. In general, there's nothing to complain about. It is a little costly though so only utilize it when a more specialized solution is unavailable. Occasionally it will take some time to open some cheats. If you're performing this for the very first time or are a beginner then we advise you to stick to the below steps carefully. A lot of you've already guessed this game is somewhat much like Clash of Clans Online. An individual must have a good option of cards and when and how to use it in order to make much better status in the game.

My Top Ten Favourite Horror Movies

10.  THE MIST – in 2007, writer/director Frank Darabont once again proved he does his best work when adapting master of literary horror Stephen King (after The Green Mile and solid gold masterpiece The Shawshank Redemption), this time turning to pure horror with one of the author’s lesser-known early novellas.  The result is another tour-de-force cinematic blueprint, a taut, harrowing tale of humanity pushed far beyond the brink by unexplained supernatural events and the monstrous lengths normal people will go to to stay alive, as a small-town New England supermarket is cut off from the outside world by a mysterious, monster-filled mist.  The Expanse’s Thomas Jane proves a complex hero, beefy yet vulnerable as local artist David Drayton, leading a high-calibre cast of Stephen King-movie/TV regulars – Jeffrey DeMunn (The Green Mile), Andre Braugher (Salem’s Lot), William Sadler (The Shawshank Redemption) and Frances Sternhagen (Misery) – and “newcomers” – Laurie Holden (who must have really impressed Darabont, since he subsequently cast her alongside DeMunn in The Walking Dead), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s Toby Jones (as one of the most unorthodox action heroes in cinematic history) and Miller’s Crossing’s Marcia Gay Harden, pretty much stealing the film as deeply unhinged Bible-basher Mrs Carmody, who goes from unsavoury town nut to fervent cult leader as the situation grows increasingly desperate.  Darabont once again proves what an exceptional screen storyteller he can be, effortlessly weaving an atmosphere of mounting dread and knife-edge tension, as well as delivering some nightmarish set-pieces featuring magnificent Lovecraft-inspired beasties designed by The Walking Dead’s creature effects master Greg Nicotero.  When cinematic horror was becoming increasingly saturated with “gorno” Saw-derivatives, this was a welcome return to old-fashioned monster movie thrills (Darabont himself was heavily inspired by the monochrome scary movies of his childhood, and longed to make the film in black-and-white – indeed, this is definitely worth watching at least once in the “director’s cut” B&W version he included on the special edition DVD release), and not only proved one of the best examples of King on screen to date, but also one of THE key horror movies of the “Noughties”. Not least thanks to that ending, one of the greatest sucker punch twists of all time – reputedly King was most envious of Darabont on seeing it for the first time, wishing he’d thought it up himself. Coming from the King of Horror, that’s high praise indeed.

9.  30 DAYS OF NIGHT – when Steve Niles, the undisputable master of post-modern horror comics, originally came up with the concept for his definitive work, it was intended for the big screen, but he ultimately wound up committing it to print because he just couldn’t get anyone to produce it.  Interesting, then, that the comic’s runaway success led to its optioning by Sam Raimi and his production company Ghost House Pictures, Niles adapting the first volume alongside Stuart Beattie and Brian Nelson, with Hard Candy director David Slade at the helm.  Of course, the concept was always a killer – for one month every year, the sun never rises over the Alaskan town of Barrow, a fact that a coven of hungry vampires have decided to exploit in a midwinter free-for-all feeding frenzy.  Josh Hartnett manfully crumbles in what remains his best role as town sheriff Eben Olemaun, ably supported by Melissa George as his estranged fire-marshal wife Stella, Memento/Batman Begins’ Mark Boone Junior as hard-as-nails town loner Bo, Ben Foster (one of my very favourite actors) as a mysterious drifter with a dark agenda, and Danny Huston, who created one of the best ever screen vampires with nihilistic pack leader Marlow. It’s ironic that David Slade should have followed this with Twilight film Eclipse (although he was an inspired choice – after all, it’s the one that DOESN’T suck) – this is about as far removed from the toothless, blood-lite young adult series as you can get, an unrelenting, gore-drenched exercise in relentless carnage and ice-cold terror.  These vamps wouldn’t be caught (ahem) dead sparkling – they’re man-shaped mako sharks, all dead black eyes and jagged teeth, gleefully revelling in slaughter and playing sadistic games of cat and mouse with the isolated townsfolk.  This is definitely not a movie for the faint of heart, and it takes itself deadly seriously right through the unapologetically bleak ending, but it is nonetheless an endlessly rewarding thrill ride for the faithful, paying respect to all the great conventions of the genre while simultaneously ripping them to shreds.  Brutal, bloody and brilliant, this is BAR NONE the best vampire movie of the post-Interview age, and very nearly my all-time favourite EVER ...

8.  POLTERGEIST – 1982 saw the release of TWO of my all-time fave horror movies, and the lesser (but no less awesome) of the two is what I personally consider to be THE DEFINITIVE haunted house movie.  Tobe Hooper, director of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, pretty much reinvented ghosts on the big screen with this thrilling tale of a small-town-American family, the Freelings, whose seemingly perfect home comes under the influence of a powerful supernatural force.  At first the effects are harmless – moving furniture and the like – until a night-time thunderstorm signals a terrifying escalation and younger daughter Carol-Anne (Heather O’Rourke) is sucked through a portal into the spirit world.  Long before he was the dad in The Incredibles, Craig T. Nelson had already become a pretty definitive cuddly American screen father as Steven Freeling, while JoBeth Williams is a lioness defending her cubs as mother Diane; then-newcomer Heather O’Rourke, meanwhile, is a naturalistic revelation as Carol-Anne, her innocent delivery of “They’re here!” becoming a genuine geek phenomenon all on its own, but the film’s real runaway performance comes from Zelda Rubinstein as diminutive Southern belle psychic medium Tangina Barrons, whose every screen moment is a quirky joy.  As you’d expect, Hooper’s scares are flawlessly executed, the atmospheric tension ratcheted with consummate skill, even if the director’s characteristic gore is kept to a PG-13-friendly minimum ... then again, this was a summer offering from Back to the Future producers Frank Marshall and Steven Spielberg himself, who was also the main screenwriter. Indeed, his influence is keenly felt throughout – the suburban world the Freelings inhabit is very much in keeping with Spielberg classics like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. – and there have been consistent rumours that he was all but the de-facto director on set.  The film (along with its sequels) has also gained a reputation for being cursed, with no less than FOUR cast members dying not long after (most notably Dominique Dunne, who played elder Freeling daughter Dana, who was murdered by her boyfriend just five months after the film’s release).  Whatever the truth behind these rumours, there’s no denying this is a cracking film – taut, atmospheric and consistently terrifying while also displaying a playful, quirky sense of humour and lots of heart, it remains one of the most rewarding and entertaining screen ghost stories around.

7.  BUBBA HO-TEP – Bruce Campbell is Elvis Presley!  He really is!  Although maybe he isn’t ... all right, TECHNICALLY he’s Sebastian Haff, a washed-up, long-retired Elvis impersonator languishing in a retirement home who claims he really IS the King (apparently he swapped places with the REAL Haff because he’d grown tired of fame).  Meanwhile one of his fellow residents is an old black man who claims he’s the real JFK, maintaining that President Lyndon Johnson had him dyed black and secreted in anonymity with a bag of sand sewn into the gap in his brain ... confused yet? Well hold on, cuz there’s more – the retirement home in question has been invaded by the malevolent spirit of a cursed soul-sucking mummy, and only these two fallen heroes can save the day ... yup, writer/director Don (Phantasm and John Dies At the End) Coscarelli’s initially criminally overlooked but deservedly seriously cult adaptation of Joe R. Lansdale’s novel is as typically oddball as the rest of his filmography.  It’s also his most moving and spiritual work to date – behind all the supernatural weirdness and quirky, offbeat humour this is a deeply-affecting meditation on the pains of growing old and losing your place in the world.  Bruce Campbell’s Elvis/Haff is a tragic hero, regretting his current lot and pining for former glories, but he still has the odd little twinkle of his former charm and bravado (particularly during his interactions with his nurse, played with spiky gutsiness by Ella Joyce), while screen legend Ossie Davis is stately and charismatic as “the former President Kennedy”, even when he sounds REALLY crazy.  Meanwhile the creature, “Bubba Ho-Tep” himself (Bob Ivy), is a fantastically weird creation, Coscarelli’s skilful use of atmospherics elevating him far above the “guy-in-a-suit” effects – he’s mean, cranky, and just as strong a character as his flesh-and-blood counterparts.  Coscarelli really let rip on this one – it’s chock-full of his characteristic leftfield comic-scariness (Elvis/Haff’s early encounter with one of the mummy’s scarab familiars is a particular zany gem), visually inventive and frequently laugh-out-loud hilarious, but in the end plays out on such a heartfelt, genuinely powerful and moving denouement that you can’t help getting a lump in your throat, even while it is one of those movies that leaves you with a big dumb goofy grin on your face.  It’d be pretty sweet if Coscarelli and his mate Paul Giamatti ever get their long-gestating “prequel” Bubba Nosferatu: Curse of the She-Vampires off the ground, but this is one that you can’t help loving all on its own.  See this if you’re a Coscarelli fan – it’s his best work to date – see this if you love quirky, unusual and original horror ... hell, see this if you love MOVIES. This is a true GEM, not to be missed.

6.  DOG SOLDIERS – my favourite werewolf movie is also easily one of the most offbeat – think The Howling meets Assault On Precinct 13 and you’re pretty close to the mark. Before visionary British horror director Neil Marshall had his big break with masterpiece The Descent, he made an impressive cult splash with his feature debut, a fiendish comedy horror in which a six-man British Army unit on training manoeuvres in the wilds of Scotland stumbles upon a pack of hungry werewolves and are forced to take shelter in an isolated cottage.  With their ammo dwindling and their weapons largely ineffective against the monsters (not a silver bullet between them, of course), it doesn’t look likely that ANY of will survive the night ... setting the humour dial for JET BLACK, Marshall keeps the atmosphere tense and the substantial gore flying (I was amazed when I saw this in the cinema that it was only a 15 – even just ten years earlier stuff like this was GUARANTEED a solid 18 certificate), while the squaddies are a likeably foul-mouthed bunch with a winning, sometimes enjoyably geeky line in spiky banter (Marshall makes frequent references to everything from Star Trek and The Evil Dead to The Matrix and, in one of my favourite nods, Zulu).  Trainspotting’s Kevin McKidd is brawny but enjoyably self-deprecating as nominal hero Cooper, Sean (son of Doctor Who Jon) Pertwee gives great earthy-shoutiness as Sgt. Wells, Darren Morfitt consistently steals the film as mouthy little bugger “Spoon” (short for Witherspoon), and Game Of Thrones star Liam Cunningham injects a strong dose of dark and dangerous as Captain Ryan, the special forces operative with a sinister plan, while Emma Cleasby is far from just a token female as zoologist Megan, who came to Scotland in search of the legend and seems to have found a whole lot more than she bargained for – she’s smart, tough and flat-out refuses to be a love interest, and definitely proved a good trial run for Marshall’s all-female cast in The Descent.  It’s impressively paced – after an initial character-driven set-up so we can get to know the lads (including a fun little scare-on-top-of-a-laugh moment), the action kicks in fast and rarely lets up for the rest of the film’s tightly-packed 105 minute running time.  The set pieces are thrilling and frequently fun (particularly Spoon’s ballsy little distraction technique), and the werewolves are impressively brought to life through physical animatronics created by Image FX (the Hellraiser effects team!) and a talented troupe of stilt-walking stunt performers – no cheesy CGI here!  Altogether it marked a blinding debut for a singular, visionary sci-fi/horror talent who’s still making his presence felt – Doomsday was a delightfully old-school slice of super violent sci-fi in the John Carpenter vein, while tight, gruesome little Roman-era suspense thriller Centurion proved that a historical epic doesn’t have to be 2+ hours long with a big budget to impress, and Marshall continues to garner real acclaim through his extensive TV work on the likes of Game of Thrones. That said, I can’t wait for him to return to the big screen, preferably with more dark, edgy, blood-soaked fun like this ...

5.  TREMORS – I’ve always had something of a bias towards horror movies that are also comedies, or at least that have a strong sense of humour throughout, and when it comes to funny horror movies, this brilliant throwback to cheesy 1950s monster movies is KING, baby! While it snuck in under the radar on its 1990 release, director Ron Underwood’s sleeper universally wowed critics, word of mouth helping it to become an impressive cult smash once it hit home video ... which meant I saw it at JUST the right time, the film quickly becoming a firm fixture in my favourites lists and a major milestone in my own geek development.  The premise is simplicity itself – giant underground worms with tentacles in their mouths terrorise an isolated desert community – but underneath the goofy concept is a surprisingly sophisticated movie that continues to influence filmmakers today.  Kevin Bacon was in a bit of a career slump at the time (Footloose had been SO LONG before), but this gave him both the shot in the arm he needed and one of his most memorable roles ever – odd-jobbing slacker Val McKee, who has to get off his arse and think big to beat the beasties; Fred Ward is the perfect foil as Val’s crotchety “business” partner Earl Basset, while Finn Carter is thoroughly lovable as scientist Rhonda LeBeck, a no-nonsense smart girl who can go toe-to-toe with the boys (and manages to lose her pants WITHOUT losing her credibility), but the film is consistently stolen by Family Ties star Michael Gross as tightly wound survivalist Burt Gummer – this might be Bacon’s movie, but Gross is the real star, deservedly becoming the driving force of the film’s various sequels AND the spinoff TV series.  The film opens with a killer of a funny line, starting as it means to go on – frequently hilarious and smart as a whip, consistently defying character and genre tropes and wrong-footing the viewer almost a decade before Joss Whedon started doing the same with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, all the while balancing the belly laughs with some genuinely scary set pieces.  The worms themselves (or “Graboids”, if you want to get specific) are spectacular creations, some of the most original movie monsters out there, and they still stand up well today, just like the rest of the film.  A cornerstone of the genre that wins over new fans with each generation, this is one of those films that deserves to be remembered for a very long time, and looks set to do just that.

4.  EVIL DEAD 2: DEAD BY DAWN – nobody does screen chaos like Sam Raimi, particularly when it comes to his horror offerings – still his first and purest love.  His original debut feature The Evil Dead is rightly considered the DEFINITIVE indie horror, and to this day remains the standard blueprint for all young, aspiring directors starting out in the genre ... it’s also a work of pure, unadulterated MADNESS once it gets going. Raimi upped the ante with this part-remake, part-sequel, the increased budget and proper studio resources meaning he could REALLY let his imagination run riot, and the results are a cavalcade of tongue-clean-THROUGH-cheek, jet black comedic insanity that STILL has yet to be equalled.  Bruce Campbell returns as unlikely “hero” Ash Williams, thoroughly out of his depth and failing miserably to hold it together as the ancient tome of evil itself, the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis (“Book of the Dead”), unleashes a horde of undead demons on the isolated forest cabin he’s brought his girlfriend to.  Wildly expanding on the supernatural back-story of his original, Raimi and co-writer Scott Spiegel also ramped up the humour, playing the horror on the blackest edge they can, albeit cut with a hefty dose of Tex Avery – Ash’s battle with his own possessed, eventually severed hand is like some demented skit out of The Three Stooges, while the absolute comedic highlight is the ridiculously over-the-top “laughing room” sequence, in which the seemingly inanimate objects in the cabin suddenly come to life and begin to taunt Ash; add in the great wealth of re-view-friendly visual in-jokes scattered throughout and this remains Raimi’s FUNNIEST film to date.  Campbell clearly had a ball, throwing himself into the action with everything he had, and he’s ably supported by a meaty (ahem) cast that includes a very pre-Slither Dan Hicks as a seriously scuzzy redneck and Raimi’s own brother Ted, virtually unrecognisable as one of the maniacal Deadites (“I’ll swallow your soul!”).  The creature effects from the great Greg Nicotero still stand up spectacularly well today (they remain some of his very best work), from hideous gurning beasts to insane fountains of blood, while Raimi’s direction is pitch-perfect, playing the humour beautifully while still (sometimes simultaneously) building up a near-unbearable atmosphere of unholy dread, and the climax is ingenious, beautifully setting things up for the enjoyably madcap trilogy-closer Army of Darkness: the Medievil Dead. Raimi has finally brought the trilogy the follow-up fans had been waiting decades for with the fantastically bonkers Ash Vs. the Evil Dead series, but this delirious masterpiece remains the franchise’s zenith.  Groovy ...

3.  JAWS – it may be the oldest film on this list (released in 1975, it’s THREE YEARS OLDER than I am!), but Steven Spielberg’s breakthrough feature has aged incredibly well.  Indeed, it almost single-handedly changed the face of big budget cinema, establishing the idea of tent-pole summer blockbusters and blanket-bombardment advertising campaigns (in particularly it was one of the first to make heavy use of television to drum up excitement and interest), ultimately taking over $400,000,000 on its original release (the equivalent of multi-billion big earners like Avatar today) and paving the way for Star Wars two years later.  Not to mention the film’s famous negative effect on beach-going for years after ... but under all that there’s a magnificent, masterfully-crafted film, still (rightly) considered one of the director’s best.  The plot may be ridiculously simple – New England beach-community Amity Island is terrorised by a man-eating Great White shark – but there’s a stealthily subversive story here, taking old genre conventions and twisting them in new, unexpected directions (which would, ironically, form a template for a great many later horror movies); while the first hour is a slow-burn thriller, the second is more like a light-hearted nautical action adventure with added scares.  The French Connection’s Roy Scheider virtually CREATED the everyman-out-of-his-depth hero with his portrayal of Amity police chief Martin Brody, a former New York cop who’s terrified of the water, Richard Dreyfuss is lovable comedic gold as rich kid marine biologist Matt Hooper, Lorraine Gary did a lot with very little as Brody’s wife Ellen, and Robert Shaw effortlessly steals the film as shark hunter Quint, a ferocious, scenery-chewing force of nature in the mould of Moby Dick’s Captain Ahab.  The film is immensely rich in great character moments, from Hooper’s rib-tickling arrival on the island and the dialogue-free moment Brody shares with his younger son Sean, to the undeniable high point of the film, where a humorous comparison of scars (which has itself become a popular homage-magnet in film and TV) leads to Quint chilling account of his wartime experience onboard the U.S.S. Indianapolis (the ship transporting the Hiroshima atomic bomb which was torpedoed in the Pacific, leading to over a thousand stranded sailors being eaten alive by sharks); indeed, this is one of Spielberg’s most well-written films, sitcom writer Carl (The Odd Couple) Gottlieb’s polish of author Peter Benchley’s adaptation of his own original novel still zipping and zinging today, although some of the best dialogue was derived from the actors’ own on-set improvisations (most famously Scheider’s now-legendary “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”).  It’s also one of his most well-directed, with near-hypnotic tricks in editing and bold, adventurous choices in atmosphere-building, often a result of the shoot’s infamous difficulties – the animatronic shark (affectionately named “Bruce” by the director, and “the Great White Turd” by the crew) created by Bob Mattley (the guy who did the giant squid in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) was impressive when it worked, but this was so rarely that the director had to devise several means of creating maximum tension WITHOUT showing the shark, which ultimately ADDS to the effectiveness of those scenes, particularly the “barrel-chasing” in the second half.  None of these tricks, however, work better than the score from Spielberg’s most faithful collaborator, John Williams, based around a deceptively simple four-note melody that evolves into something spectacularly evocative, which has rightly become the film’s most iconic element.  Humorous, intriguing, intense and still thoroughly terrifying when it wants to be, this is, bar-none, the finest man-versus-nature horror EVER MADE, and surely always will be.

2.  NEAR DARK – I’m a fool for vampires (much like I’m a fool for redheads, but that’s a whole other conversation), so bloodsucker horror is one of my very favourite sub-genres.  I’m also a big fan of Kathryn Bigelow – two of her most recent features, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, both pinged VERY LOUDLY on my radar (the former is my favourite war movie of the current decade), while her collaboration with then husband James Cameron, Strange Days (he wrote, she directed), rates high on my list of criminally underrated screen gems.  So what do you think happened when she made a vampire movie?  The results SHOULD have become one of the most celebrated and legendary features in the genre ... except that it came out in October 1987, two months after the admittedly cool and fun but far more glossy and dumb The Lost Boys.  Needless to say in the wake of that, Bigelow’s film got kind of lost in the back chatter, nearly flopping at the box office and all but vanishing into obscurity ... until its subsequent release on video (quite rightly) earned it an impressive cult following.  Myself included, because this movie is RIGHT UP my dark and dangerous alley.  Collaborating with The Hitcher’s screenwriter Eric Red, Bigelow crafted a (largely) deadly serious modern day supernatural “western”, in which cocky farm-boy Caleb Colton (Heroes’ Adrian Pasdar) hits on cute drifter Mae (Jenny Wright, probably best known for her supporting turn in Young Guns 2), only to get WAY more than he bargained for when her kiss leaves him with a crippling hunger and one serious tanning problem.  Pasdar’s all-knowing youthful swagger disintegrates as he tumbles further down the vampiric rabbit hole, while Wright’s fragile beauty compliments her character’s deep, soulful melancholy – the pair make for a compelling, tragic romantic centre anchoring the horrors that unfold as Caleb begins to lose himself to his burgeoning nature; even so, the true dark and twisted soul of the film lies with Mae’s predatory nomad “family” – Lance Henriksen is the definitive “dark father” as nihilistic pack leader Jesse Hooker, while his Aliens co-star Jenette Goldstein is his perfect mate as punk rock femme fatale Diamondback, and Joshua John Miller excels as Homer, the bitter old man trapped in a child’s body ... meanwhile Bill Paxton consistently steals the film as mad dog Severen, chewing the scenery to splinters with gleeful, feral aplomb and stealing all the best lines. It’s a potent, heady ride, taking itself pretty seriously throughout but deriving a subtle, inky black sense of gallows humour from the situation, and the set-pieces are intense and thrilling (particularly the shootout in a roadside motel at dawn, where shafts of sunlight become as lethal as bullets).  At times it’s also powerful, soulful and bleakly beautiful, Bigelow’s heavily stylised visuals brilliantly augmented by the spiky electronic score from Tangerine Dream.  It also subverts the classic vampire conventions with great skill and originality, with nary a cross, coffin or even fang in sight.  Like 30 Days of Night, this is the perfect antidote for anyone suffering from Twilight-overload – the monster can be quite interesting when he’s the hero, but he’s just so much more fun when he’s the bad guy ...

1.  JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING – while I’m sure many will think I’m mad for preferring this over Carpenter’s other seminal horror classic Halloween, this one’s much more my speed, a perfect exercise in sustained tension, paranoia and white-knuckle terror.  Critically mauled and underperforming on its release (it was labelled by many as a sort of “anti-E.T.: the Extraterrestrial”, which came out two weeks earlier ... and interestingly this opened the same day as Blade Runner!), it nonetheless became a massive cult hit now rightly considered one of the true DEFINITIVE horror movies.  Faithfully adapting John Campbell, Jr.’s novella Who Goes There? (certainly more so than Howard Hawks’ admittedly entertaining but ultimately very kitsch The Thing From Another World), it revolves around the all-male crew of U.S. research station 4, Outpost 31, in Antarctica, who come under threat from a body-snatching alien entity that can perfectly imitate its victims after investigating the mysterious destruction of a neighbouring Norwegian facility. Carpenter regular Kurt Russell (Escape From New York, Big Trouble In Little China) is at his gruff best as helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady, the taciturn blue-collar Joe called upon to play “hero”, Keith David (Pitch Black, Carpenter’s They Live) angrily flexes his acting and physical muscles as hot-tempered researcher Childs, Donald Moffat crumbles as ineffectual station commander Garry, and screen legend Wilford Brimley effortlessly makes the exposition compelling as tightly-wound biologist Blair.  The freezing Antarctic atmosphere perfectly complements the razor-edged suspense, the idea that ANYONE could be the creature lending every scene a palpable sense of implied threat, while the science of the fiction is thankfully largely put on the back-burner in favour of the story and scares; meanwhile there’s a cheeky edge of jet black humour throughout, from the scuttling disembodied head to Garry’s explosive reaction to MacReady’s improvised humanity-test. Rob (The Howling, Robocop, Fight Club) Bottin’s fantastically nightmarish creature effects are a magnificent achievement, still looking as good today as they did back in 1982, while master composer Ennio Morricone’s subtle, atmospheric score is a triumph of creepy, insidious subliminal effect.  For me, this film is the definition of fear – the idea that the threat could be literally ANYONE, that you could even become that yourself, be taken over completely, body and soul, is absolutely terrifying, and Carpenter executes this potential reality with surgical precision from the intriguing, icy start to the bleak, desolate ending.  Perfect.