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Have you ever had a dream, Neo, you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How could you distinguish between the dream world and the real world?

Most children have a monster or two – under the bed, in the closet. One of mine lurked in the huge attic fan that cooled our home during the Time Before Air Conditioning. I never walked underneath when the slats were open. The creature was up there, perched above the rumbling mechanism. Go under and it might drop down and bury its claws in you. It could pass right through the spinning blades. I knew this. But I never saw it. Because there are no fan-monsters.

Our own Mat C reviewed Alan Wake in 2010, producing a definitive, thoughtful  piece of work. I agree with basically everything he said and the way he said it, so I don’t mean to just regurgitate. Mat took care of a lot of the heavy lifting for me by doing the Reviewer’s Job; my intent is to look with the space of years, a platform change, and perspective between the game’s 2005 announcement, its 2010 self, and its now self. Alan Wake is an exceptional effort that could have been even better. Yet to reject it as just a missed opportunity is unfair. There’s more to it than what we got, but what we got is still a superb game.

And I made a video! You gotta watch my video. Click the button! CLICK IT!

Whenever I go to the pictures (or ‘cinema’ as most people call it) I make every effort to avoid trailers. Over the weekend I went to see The Cabin In The Woods, a film I knew absolutely nothing about other than it was apparently good, and it was written and directed by Drew Goddard (Lost, Cloverfield, Angel) and co-written by Joss Whedon (partly responsible for quite a few things I’ve not liked, particularly that fourth Alien film after the trilogy). We arrived early, got into the screen early and I had to watch the trailers. Looking back, I wish I’d had some ice cream to distract me.

Guess what! Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro loves videogames. Always has. And while he’s been emitting noises about maybe making one for a while, not much has been confirmed except that he’s been talking with publisher THQ, until a recent interview for MTV. Now we know that the game will be a Lovecraftian action-RPG, but not for about three years.

Fear is our most primal,‭ ‬basic instincts; encouraging us to flee the unfamiliar or dangerous.‭ ‬In entertainment we call it horror. Fear is an emotion‭; ‬horror is a genre, with clichés,‭ ‬conventions,‭ ‬and innovations.‭

Back in‭ ‬1998,‭ ‬my friends introduced me to the survival horror genre in the form of‭ ‬Resident Evil‭ ‬2.‭ ‬I remember the hallway,‭ ‬screaming when the horde of bats breaks the glass.‭  ‬I remember the first encounter with the Licker on the ceiling,‭ ‬his sightless face locking onto yours,‭ ‬drool slavering from his jaws.‭  ‬I screamed,‭ ‬panicked,‭ ‬and was promptly eviscerated.‭  ‬These encounters and others carved themselves into my memory,‭ ‬making them‭ ‬pinnacle horror game moments.‭  ‬I still remember pausing the game to wipe sweat from the controllers.

Movie review by Scout Cold Prey Directed by Roar Uthaug From SR Norge AS Released October 13, 2006 Available on DVD Verdict: 4/5 Thumbs Up “Five teenagers wend their way to the top of a mountain to snow board down the back slope. There is the very hot teen couple, the not-quite-as-hot teen couple having relationship  problems and the lone and lonely male with a crush on one of the hot teen girls. They all …

So EA’s internally-developed Dead Space comes out Wednesday, and reviews have been a mixture of pretty positive and very positive. This is one I’ve got on my GameFly list rather than down as a purchase. Why? Because scary games make me tremble, and because I’m witholding judgment on the game’s overall quality until I hear a little more about it. EA is not, after all, really what one thinks of when one thinks of innovative …

Movie Review by Scout Bug Directed by William Friedkin From Lionsgate Films Released May 2007 Available on DVD Verdict:  4/5 Thumbs Up “…Ashley Judd frakking knocks it out of the park, turning in one of the best acting jobs in her career. She is a revelation, a cavalcade of dysfunction, a celebration of dissipation.”