webflotsam.bsky.social

webflotsam.bsky.social

@webflotsam.bsky.social

History, biology, whatever comes to my head at the time. Doodler of beasts, writer of stories.

151 followers227 following3K posts

Scarecrows are one of my favorite monster types. I think that they're interesting because they are somewhat crude representations of humanity, but still get personified so easily. They absorb a bit of us, and when what we're giving off is tainted, it sticks to them.

The Jester remembers what so many new slashers forget. They get so obsessed with their physical cruelty that they forget their psychological cruelty. You can be more creative in your cruel displays than just a gory corpse. Really give the survivors lifelong trauma!

I'm always interested in the evolution of art and technology just as much as living things, and right now I'm getting a very interesting look at the evolution of slashers, since I'm watching a ton of them. They very much come in eras, and I'm excited to see a new one forming.

Some count Halloween as the first "true" slasher, which I find a meaningless distinction. It definitely shaped slashers for the future, however. What's very interesting is seeing the slashers or "protoslashers" from before it.

If you push the problem in Project Hail Mary back even a couple decades, it becomes a cosmic horror story about something weird happening to the sun and everybody dying without even being able to figure out what happened.

So how long do you think it'll be before somebody actually makes Megan? AI robot to raise your kids. Ignore all messages of the movie, that having an AI robot raise your kids is a really bad idea for a lot of reasons.

I didn't know there was a new Street Fighter movie coming out until I saw the trailer at the theater last week. And... wow, it looks BAD. There's a reason we don't directly translate things to the screen this way most of the time.

webflotsam.bsky.social reposted

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Feed me promises, keep my heart well I'll sing you songs until the darkness does recede But if in the end I lose my voice Will you forget about your love for me?

RE PROS: - Felt like playing an RE game. The MC is constantly dealing with locked shit. He even gets upset about the amount of padlocks he has to deal with. - The MC himself. Bit of a loser but usually charming. Has genius quick thinking but the ability to plan ahead of an ADHD amoeba.

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RE CONS: - Tone. Zack Cregger does NOT have the magic touch for horror-comedy. While the comedy isn't bad, it really does a number on the horror. The tension is consistently undercut, and it's frustrating because the scary stuff is SCARY.

- Characters. MC is fine, but the other people we see are largely cardboard cutouts, and again often have the tone problem. The first Umbrella guy we meet is so goofy he's basically from It's Always Sunny in Racoon City. Less cons, but they are constant.

RE PROS: - Felt like playing an RE game. The MC is constantly dealing with locked shit. He even gets upset about the amount of padlocks he has to deal with. - The MC himself. Bit of a loser but usually charming. Has genius quick thinking but the ability to plan ahead of an ADHD amoeba.

- MONSTERS. No rehashes from the series besides basic zombies, but all the ones they have fit the vibe and are wonderful. - Not 90% zombies. In fact zombies take up very little screentime. - Series references were cute and unobtrusive. No jangling keys for the lore nerds.

I was surprised to see Jim Caviezel in a trailer for what looked like a real movie. Had a lot of flare and a big anti-corp message. Then I realized that it's not nearly as big-budget as it seems to be pretending. I don't recognize any names involved and the effects look cheap.

So I think they're just advertising it like it's a real blockbuster because it worked for his last movie. So I might still be correct that he's not talented enough for them to put up with his crazy. Hollywood will put up with a LOT for star power. More than they should. He just lacked power.

For reference, the one movie I've fully seen with him is Outlander, where he perfectly embodies the main character. He does this by being phenomenally middle of the road and generic, because his performance and the character are equally dull.

If I had a youtube channel my first video would be me pretending to be on the ethics board after the events of Splice. "I'm not even sure I can count the ways your husband having sex with it alone violated the law, let alone scientific ethics."

As I prepare to see Resident Evil later, I'm going to talk a bit about movies that have proper Resident Evil vibes, despite not being part of the franchise. Because let's face it, the actual film attempts leave a lot to be desired.

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Sea Fever is also quite Alien, taking place almost entirely on a struggling fishing boat. When they cross over into protected whale territory, they are attacked by a creature that seems to mistake them for a whale, injecting its parasitic offspring into the ship's water supply.

Dog Soldiers is another more solidly RE one, with lots of guns and action. A military unit on a wargame finds themselves under attack for real by werewolves, pissed off because another unit attempted to capture some of them for military research.

As I prepare to see Resident Evil later, I'm going to talk a bit about movies that have proper Resident Evil vibes, despite not being part of the franchise. Because let's face it, the actual film attempts leave a lot to be desired.

Isolation is a little more Alien in nature, darker and slower. Unethical genetic experimentation on cows to make them faster-breeding and growing results in something that is NOT a cow crawling around, with horrible implications for the planet if it escapes.

One of my oldest pet peeves in fiction, dating back to childhood, is overly humancentric animal symbolism. Scorpions, snakes, vultures, etc. are bad because humans don't like them, regardless of what they actually do. Lame! Get out of your own heads, humans! That's the whole fun of writing animals!

One of the weirdest things about the reaction to this movie is people absolutely insisting that Ava has no interiority or real emotions. One of her versions smashed herself to pieces trying to escape. That seems like an emotional response, not cold rational thinking to escape.

webflotsam.bsky.social@webflotsam.bsky.social

Rewatching Ex Machina because I'm curious about how having watched Obsession makes me feel about the main character. Will I judge him more harshly this time? Probably. Will I feel about him nearly as negatively as Bear? Probably not.

Oh and yes, I do judge Caleb more harshly this time. He doesn't seem to have considered Kyoko much if at all in his planning. My take is Ava left him behind because she realized his attraction to her is all that was getting him do do the right thing, and ignoring Kyoko was part of that.

Victory for fish

Trevor A. Branch@trevorabranch.bsky.social

This is seismic news for fisheries scientists. Northern cod is *the* iconic symbol of total fisheries collapse due to overfishing (and other factors) *and* the iconic symbol of a complete failure to recover for decades afterwards. This is like announcing the complete recovery of bison on land.