What’s Up 2020: Week 18

Welcome to the next What’s Up! Week 18 was a rather slower one, kind of. Like I had said before, it was also a week of immense stress and lots of overtime so in turn, a lot of things suffered from it. Luckily, next week’s recap returns to normal so we’ll be all back on track with everything (hopefully)!

READING

Currently reading: Undead Ultra

Very little reading was done! My main reading material has been catching up with news mostly for work purposes. Suffice to say, not enough progress in Undead Ultra to say much more about it. I am rather frustrating for not finding more reading time though.

PLAYING

• Samsara Room

Currently playing: Pinball FX3

Last week had the release of Samsara Room, which is a remake of Rusty Lake’s first game. It was offered for free on Steam and mobile devices which is always great. The game itself is very much to Rusty Lake’s style of puzzles/escape room. It was a fun little game with some decent puzzles for sure. I’m working on some mobile games roundup posts for Game Warp currently so this might get on one after I finish up the current post. There’s some gaming reviews backlog but things are slowly getting back up and running.

On the other hand, I finally started Pinball FX 3 which is one that’s been recommended to me by my podcast co-host Elwood after I had been on the pinball craze with Demon’s Tilt previously.

WATCHING

• Escape Room (2017)
• The Edge of Seventeen (2016 rewatch, Review)

Currently watching: Fight Club (1999)

Movies was on a low. i watched a bad movie to start the week and that was 2017’s Escape Room. Don’t confuse it with the more recent Escape Room that I reviewed HERE. Very different experience. It was so bad that I couldn’t use it as my feature film so I ended up rewatching a sure-fire, The Edge of Seventeen. Its been a few years since I’ve seen this one and it still is really fun to watch.

Much to a lot of people’s surprise, I haven’t seen Fight Club and was doing it for Movies and Tea recording. Way ahead in recording so you can guess what our next season is pretty much about at this point. I got shocked by the movie’s length and lost the focus to watch so about half done and stopped.

BINGING

• Unrequited Love (2019 rewatch)
• Wolf Creek (Season 2, 2017)

Currently binging: Youth With You 2, Me To Us, The Love Equations, Produce Camp 2020, Welcome Back to Sound, Go Fridge (Season 6), Yes I Do (Season 2)

TV is still going the strongest. After The Untamed, I’m not going to lie, its not done yet. I’m still incredibly obsessed with it so I haven’t found the mood to start a whole lot of new TV dramas. There’s one that just started that I want to see but just not in the mood at this current moment. Either way, variety shows have been bursting out everywhere. New seasons for shows that I like. Everything in the “currently binging” section is all new shows updated once or twice a week so once I caught up with everything, I went back to rewatch Unrequited Love which I am also working on a TV binge for and a second watch has got me scratching my head even more why they are remaking this so soon. Either way, we will see whether the new one works as well when it gets released.

As for Shudder, it finally got Wolf Creek’s Season 2 which we’ve been waiting for since we finished the first season a year (or maybe two) ago. Luckily, this is an anthology series so every season the story is different because the first season is slightly foggy (more for my husband). This one was very different to the first season but overall, other than the first episode, it was a pretty good one. I’m not sure whether Season 3 was confirmed but I did see in my research that Wolf Creek 3 is in the plans.

The only changes for this week for currently binging goes to the newest season release for Go Fridge and Yes I Do on Tencent and iQiyi respectively.  There are some changes to the structure but overall, it seems like its going to be a good time.  Only one episode in so we never know, right?

That’s it for this What’s Up!
What have you been reading/watching/playing/binging?

TV Binge: Wolf Creek (Season 1, 2016)

I watched Wolf Creek quite a few years ago. The movie was quite memorable to say the least and one of the highlights of the movie from what I remembered was Mick Taylor, the villain of the movie. Recently we subscribed to Shudder and with it came the first season of Wolf Creek. We had no idea where this would go but just in case, we rewatched the movie as preparation before starting it. The movie absolutely still holds up today. Here’s my original review of it. Now time to take a look at the TV series.

Wolf Creek (Season 1, 2016)

Cast: John Jarrett, Lucy Fry, Dustin Clare

An anthology series which centers on different characters being targeted by crazed serial killer Mick Taylor in the Australian outback. – IMDB

Wolf Creek is one of those series that gave me incredibly mixed feelings. Its really a mini series length which works for what it tries to accomplish. It focuses around a sixteen year old girl Eve whose family gets killed by Mick Taylor on a camping trip in Australia. The reason for the trip was for her recovery from drug addiction, mostly of the pain killer variety and she heads out to track down the killer that she feels is linked to many disappearances in Australia on her own when the police doesn’t seem to be able to help her or believe her. The first season tells the story on her side, the policeman and Mick Taylor’s side as well. The angle they choose is great but the best way that I can describe this series is it felt like a tease and not enough follow through. Don’t get me wrong. The pacing and the length work very well to the advantage of the series. The episodes take place over various areas of Australia and it almost feels like a lethal cat and mouse game except they are somewhat chasing each other while adding in the policeman Sullivan into the equation who tries to follow the girl’s traces.

Other than the beautiful Outback setting here and the road trip style here that works really well, the main characters are all done really well. Eve is played Lucy Fry and she carries herself very well especially as her character is written with a lot of development as she matures and learns from her mistakes over the course of the episodes and her chase of Mick Taylor. She grows tough and learns how to blend in and even cover her tracks a little while picking up a few femme fatale traits. Her vengeful mind and her constant resistance to her addiction takes into an intriguing journey to say the least. The cop here, Sullivan, also sees a side of his story from his personal story to his trail to find out more also makes him a pretty great character to watch. He also gets a good bit of development here however what stands out for him is his rugged personality. Then of course, there’s Mick Taylor, as always played by John Jarrett. I think he’s a great fit for this character and the fact that Wolf Creek has managed to get him to join back in for the TV series is pretty fantastic.

With that said, the part which I disliked the most about the series went to all these supporting characters that these characters meet along the way and seem to want to build up and develop halfway and make its audience care and then takes them out of the equation abruptly. I’m not exactly a fan of that. While I understand that TV series will have constant change and each of these characters may have been a little bit of a guiding light and purpose to Eve’s revenge journey, and they can’t always keep everyone on forever, it seems slightly silly to keep removing people out and it somewhat bothered me.

Overall, the first season of Wolf Creek is pretty decent. The main characters do a decent job and the structure of the show works pretty well. I had some minor issues on not letting some supporting characters of bigger roles but then, looking at the show being an anthology style per season, it seems to make much more sense. I do like the anthology idea which seems fitting for the emphasis on Mick Taylor rather than his victims.

Halloween Marathon: Wolf Creek & A Lonely Place to Die (Double Feature)

Its a bit hard to get so many movies up in a week so I’m going to keep up this double feature going.  It’ll help me cover a few more movies and not have to over analyze any of them.  How does that sound? The main features will get full reviews.

Next up was a last minute addition since it expired today: A Lonely Place to Die.  I like Melissa George a lot in thriller-esque movies so I was pretty excited to add this in.  Its more of a thriller than a horror but I like to group in thrillers for these marathons.  And for the next horror, I decided to finally watch Wolf Creek.  I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect for either so lets check it out! 🙂

 WOLF CREEK (2005)

Director & Writer: Greg Mclean

Cast: Nathan Phillips, Kestie Morassi, Cassandra Magrath, John Jarratt

Ben (Nathan Phillips), Kristy (Kestie Morassi) and Lizzy (Cassandra Magrath) all go on a backpacking/road trip. Their plans are to go hike to Wolf Creek before making it to party in Cairns. Outside Wolf Creek, the car ends up dying and they are stranded in the middle of nowhere.  Luckily, they get help from a man driving through the area.  This man offers his help however, it turns out he ends up taking them captive instead.

Wolf Creek is a pretty effective horror movie.  It builds up slowly in the beginning to how everything just turns to crap afterwards.  I found the ending bit a little bit predictable but the whole setup of the movie and the building up pulled me into the movie. There was a part where I was yelling at the character to do something. I usually am pretty contained when I watch movies so thats a pretty good thing.

I expected this one to be more gory than it actually was but then I’m not saying that the torture/kills weren’t sadistic because they were.  They were actually pretty different than others I’ve seen.  It really helps that the bad guy is extremely creepy and just gets under your skin (at least he got under mine). The three backpackers don’t exactly make great choices and some of the dialogue just makes this into a typical horror movie but the premise of it all, the sum of everything makes it a pretty good and effective horror movie.

What I’m saying, despite some flaws, Wolf Creek is a worthy horror film and I was highly thrilled and entertained by it (for the most part). 🙂 If you haven’t seen this, you might want to give it a chance.

A LONELY PLACE TO DIE (2011)

Director (& co-writer): Julian Gilbey

Cast: Melissa George, Ed Speleers, Alec Newman, Kate Magowan, Garry Sweeney, Holly Boyd, Douglas Russell, Alan Steele, Sean Harris, Karel Rodden

A group of five mountain climbers: Alison (Melissa George), Rob (Alec Newman), Ed (Ed Speleers), Jenny (Kate Magowan) and Alex (Garry Sweeney), go for a climbing trip in the Scottish Highlands.  While hiking to the mountain, Ed hears a sound and alerts the others. Following the sound, they find a breathing tube buried in the ground.  Collectively, they decide to dig out whoever is under there.  They find a frightened little girl, Anna.  When they pull her out, it becomes clear that she’s valuable to a hidden presence in the forest as they get targeted.

A Lonely Place to Die is a pretty awesome thriller.  There was a lot of evading, running in the woods and fast-paced action filled with bullets flying all over the place as they try to save Anna.  It was an exciting watch.  Unlike Wolf Creek, this one builds up pretty quickly and we never really quite get to know the characters before we dive straight into the action and adventure portion of things.  We quickly get an idea of where the story is headed but we never quite know at any point whether any of them will get out of this mess.

I always expect pretty good flicks when Melissa George is on board. I saw her in 30 Days of Night in last year’s Halloween marathon (review HERE) and it was pretty good.  There is no doubt that Melissa George’s Alison was the main character in this even though it didn’t really start that way.  Still, its not as much about the character as the situation they are in: stranded and preyed on in the middle of unknown grounds trying to get back to civilization where they will be able to get more help.  Whats nice in this one is that this one has really smart characters and they actually work out some viable and believable solutions.

There’s a whole lot to like about A Lonely Place to Die.  You want to hold on to the edge of your seats? This one is paced to be that way and it doesn’t fail itself.  Its remains a constant till the ending and that makes this an exciting experience.  Not to mention the Scottish Highlands are extremely beautiful to see, except I might want to hold off on any hiking trips there after this 😉

Have you seen Wolf Creek and/or A Lonely Place to Die? Thoughts on these two?