Horror Subscription Boxes

I've never really been interested in subscription boxes. Aside from the fact that I don't want to commit to anything, or deal with the hassle of trying to cancel a subscription (I've read horror stories from other people who have had a really difficult time getting companies to cancel theirs), it just always seemed like a waste of money. You spend whatever the cost of the box is, to receive items that will probably just add to whatever clutter you have lying around. I have a lot of clutter already. There are books and games piled up everywhere, I can't add clutter I may not (most likely won't, honestly) even want on top of that. You pay $20/$30/etc. for random items that you have a chance of not even liking. In my mind, I can't justify that. I would rather take that money and spend it on a single item that I know I actually want. However, I thought, "For the sake of my horror blog, which I do not promote and no one even knows exists, let me look into some horror themed boxes."

Everything ended up coming down to two boxes, after I read the somewhat negative written reviews and the FAQs for various other subscription boxes stating that if I wanted to cancel, I would have to go through Paypal or e-mail them...Which brings me back to the reviews and people stating they never received a reply to their e-mails and continued being charged. Again, this is exactly why I don't want to deal with subscription boxes, especially from companies I've never heard of. So after a bit of research, I had two decent options left to consider.

The first box was the Occult Box ($34.95 a month). I watched a video review of their Ouija box and it seemed well thought out, they even included items for protection. Personally, even though I don't really believe in those things, I don't want to screw around with it because there's a good chance I'm wrong and I'll be terrorized by a nasty spirit. The only other video review I was able to find was for their voodoo box and I could tell a lot of thought went into that one, too, but I would never use any of those things. They would get lost in the abyss or thrown away next time I decide to clean out all the things I've been hoarding for too long. So while this seems like a very nice box, ultimately, I realized it's probably not for me. (I will admit that I am going back and forth about whether or not to pre-order their Samhain box.) But if you're someone who is interested in that sort of thing, you would probably really like it. And what's nice about Occult Box is you can buy a single box without subscribing. You can also put your subscription on hold if you don't like the theme for the current month and if you just want to cancel, they say you can do it directly from your account. No contacting Paypal, no waiting for a response to an e-mail, it's very simple.

The other subscription I considered was Box of Dread ($24.99 a month for the 1 month plan), which seemed to be pretty reputable. This one claims to come with a variation of collectibles, promotional products, shirts, stickers, figures, etc. I watched two different video reviews, from different months, and in both of those boxes, the people received a poster and a movie (along with a couple other things). That's when I decided this box wasn't right for me either. I already have a lot of horror themed posters hanging in my room, there's no space for more, any new ones would probably end up in the trash. I'm also really particular about horror films. A lot of them are awful and I'm not one of those people who can see the beauty in that, and based on the movies the other people received, I know I probably wouldn't enjoy them. So once again, we're back to not knowing exactly what you'll get and being unsatisfied with it. I would rather save money and maybe buy the Universal Classic Monsters Complete Collection that's being released on Blu-ray today. As with the last box though, there are people who would really like this subscription box, if they're more open minded and not a horror snob.

I think what I was really hoping to find was a subscription box featuring horror decor. Not tacky Halloween decorations, but items I could leave out all year. No such luck though. It would also have been nice to find a horror themed book subscription box that had reviews that didn't scare me off. I really wish the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society would start their own, because they put so much thought, love and artistry into their products, I think it would be amazing. Hopefully one day, they'll offer a service like that. Until then, I'm staying away from subscription boxes.

It (2017)

I'm going to start off with a disclaimer: I have never read It by Stephen King. I owned the book when I was younger, I read the first chapter and then I put it down forever. I love his short stories and novellas, I cannot deal with his novels. He's too verbose for me, I just want him to get to the point. I did watch the TV mini series a while ago and while I don't remember much of it, I do remember being bored. If you're afraid of clowns, I guess it might be scary. To me though, clowns are just weird space aliens who can make T-Rex shadow puppets eat people and turn them into popcorn. (If you haven't seen Killer Klowns from Outer Space, you need to.) So why did I even bother watching It, right? A lot of people told me it was better than the original and the new Pennywise was creepier...Honestly, I completely disagree. Tim Curry was way scarier. The makeup in the remake is almost cartoonish, I didn't like it.

It is about a group of kids in Derry who are being terrorized by a clown. Or an evil entity masquerading as a clown. Every 27 years, there are a significant amount of disappearances and deaths in this town. Whatever scares the kids the most is what Pennywise shows them, and based on at least one scene from the film, it appears that only the kids can see these manifestations. I really don't have anything else to say about the plot specifically, it is what it is.

The opening scene with Georgie in the basement was the scariest part of the entire film, probably because of a recurring nightmare I had as a child. There is nothing scarier when you're a kid than going down into a dark basement. And of course, the scene after that where he goes after the paper boat...Every time I hear an adult complain about kids today staying inside and playing video games or watching TV, I want to show them what happened to Georgie when he went outside to play in the rain. See what happens? SPOILERS: Your arm gets bitten off by a sewer clown.

A lot of things in this movie made me extremely uncomfortable, and not in a good, horror movie kind of way. Beverly's relationship with her father, the lecherous pharmacist, the bullying, the sheep being shot (I almost turned the movie off). Surprisingly, not the death of a bunch of children, although I did feel bad for Georgie. And I felt very frustrated because these kids never asked the adults for help. Where were all the cops in this movie? Oh, right. Henry killed the only one in the entire town.

I love movies like The Monster Squad and Little Monsters, it may just be nostalgia because I watched them when I was a kid myself. Those are both films about groups of kids working together to overcome the threat of monsters. Stephen King's It doesn't have the same effect or humor those two films had, the tone was more serious and it's definitely a darker movie, so I'm hesitant to say, "This is a great movie for kids!" Because it doesn't really have the same kind of "innocence" those movies had. It's very gory and it's not fun, it's just disturbing on many different levels. Is it even meant for kids? Doubtful. I just keep trying to make that connection because of other films (like those I mentioned above). Don't let your children watch It, unless you want to traumatize them.

Overall, the cinematography was nice, it had a good musical score. It held my interest for about an hour before my mind started drifting. But the movie didn't scare me and that's what I was hoping for based on everything that people were telling me about the remake. So it's definitely not my kind of horror film, but I can still see the appeal of it.

My History with the Resident Evil Series

I started playing videos games when I was four-years-old. Both of my parents played (my dad more than my mom, although my mom did keep me home from school on occasion to help her with Super Mario Bros. 3) and they passed the hobby onto me. When I was around 15-years-old, I stopped playing. Not because I no longer enjoyed it, but because I cared too much about what my friends thought. Five years went by before I played another game.

I remember watching Resident Evil in the middle of the night on some movie channel (I have so many stories that start this way), back when I would watch any horror movie even if it sounded terrible. I actually really enjoyed it and I still feel that way about the first movie even today. As its own thing, Resident Evil is not a bad addition to the RE universe. It's when they began adding in known characters while completely changing their personalities and making them Alice's sidekicks, and turning Alice into a superhuman, that things went downhill. So basically, Resident Evil Apocalypse. To get back on track though, because I always go off on a tangent, the first movie wasn't horrible. Especially to someone who knew nothing about the games, it was a decent zombie film. I had heard of the games, of course, and I knew my cousin played them, so I asked him, "Is this what the games are like?" And he said no. Not at all.

Fast forward a few months. I went to stay with my aunt and cousin in Florida for five weeks. I asked my cousin to show me the Resident Evil games, I was still curious about them. At that time, he owned RE Director's Cut, RE0, RE2, RE3 and RE4. I started playing RE0. Was that a mistake? Yeah, probably. Play the first game before 0 if you don't want to spoil the story. My cousin told me he never beat that game, he never even figured out how to get off the train. I did. At that point, we started passing the controller back and forth, taking turns playing through the rest of the game. That was my first experience with the Resident Evil series and, regardless of what other people say about RE0, I really enjoyed it and I still love that game.

When I went back home, I had to get a Gamecube. To go with it, there was RE0 and RE4. I give RE4 a lot of hell these days, but back then, I spent a significant amount of time playing it over the phone with my cousin, because I was pathetic and I wanted him to tell me what was waiting in each room before I entered. I had a difficult time with this one, it was only the second game I had played since my five year break and my first time ever playing a shooter (yes, that's what it is, a third person shooter without the ability to completely control the camera because someone made bad choices). It stressed me out. It still stresses me out. I can't even think about the water room without getting frustrated. But again, I spent a lot of time playing it, especially after acquiring the Chicago Typewriter. And if the game had included Ashley's suit of armor, I would have had even more fun with it.

After that, I believe REmake was next. My cousin bought it at the same time I did, but I started playing it first. I read a lot about the game beforehand and I knew Crimson Heads were a thing, and I also knew where the first encounter was. They sounded awful, but I wasn't sure just how bad they actually were. I needed a way to gauge it before I faced off against one, so I called my cousin and said, "Hey, I'm going to walk you through the first part of the game so you can catch up to me!" And that's exactly what I did, like he did for me with RE4. I walked him through everything in the beginning of the game, told him exactly what to expect, except for when he had to walk past that first Crimson Head and it woke up. I purposely left that out so I could hear his reaction and see if it was as scary as I had built it up to be in my head, but...He didn't even react. He just carried on like it was nothing. I would have to get over it and see for myself. As bad as the Crimson Heads were, they were nothing compared to what was waiting for me later in the game.

I don't remember exactly what came next between RE2, RE3 and RE CVX, but I can say I enjoyed RE2 immensely and spent a long time replaying it. The same goes for CVX and I eventually started my infinite rocket launcher run, which was a complete nightmare. I made it to the free save in the middle of the game and never finished it because of the Nosferatu fight. As for RE3, I only played that game once, on easy (sadly), and for whatever reason, I really struggled with it. Nemesis was too much for me and I wasn't good at fighting him. I really need to go back and play it again eventually.

To give you an idea of where my life was at this point, I was someone who went on GameFAQs and read through this entire plot analysis, as well as this one, because I was so enthralled by the story in this series, before RE5. I even read some of the S. D. Perry novels.

By this point, I had run out of Resident Evil games to play, until RE5 was released for the PS3. This time it was co-op! And I could use a mic to talk to my cousin, we didn't have to talk over the phone while we played anymore. Perfect. I can say with 100% certainty that RE5 is my most played Resident Evil game and the thing is, I don't even like it. It's boring. The only way that game is fun is if you're playing with a co-op partner on Pro. And that's what we did most of the time, until the Lost in Nightmares DLC was released. That DLC was amazing, it felt nothing like the main game and it was genuinely frightening. To me, it completely made up for how terrible the rest of the game was.

Next up was RE6...You know, I had high hopes for that game after the demo. The opening of Leon's scenario was quiet and dark and there were ZOMBIES. Actual zombies. Not people with parasites popping out of their heads. So imagine my disappointment when the game was released and I continued playing, only to find that the zombies were replaced by enemies that can be described as mutant dinosaurs. The story was ridiculous and the enemies were even worse. Chris, who was my favorite character in the series prior to RE5, was insufferable. Even the co-op couldn't save this one, and playing alone made me realize how bored I was by it.

I'll briefly mention that I played Umbrella Chronicles, Darkside Chronicles, and Revelations 1 and 2. I don't have much to say about them though. I own Operation Raccoon City, but I've never bothered to play it, I'm pretty sure I bought it on sale for almost nothing. I would love to get my hands on Gaiden, only because I want to see, for myself, Leon supposedly being infected with a virus before RE4 was released. I know Gaiden wasn't canon, but if it were, the implications of that whole thing would be super interesting.

Finally, there's RE7. There was this random, creepy trailer shown during Sony's E3 2016 press conference. The reveal at the end of the short clip was that it was Resident Evil 7. I was stunned and excited and amazed. All kinds of emotions were rushing through me. It was so unexpected and the trailer looked awesome and like nothing we had seen before from the series, which normally would have bothered me, but Capcom already went off the rails with RE4/5/6, so at least if they were done with zombies, this looked like something that would still be really scary. They released several playable demos before the game came out, all of which added something new to what we had already played through. By the time January hit and RE7 was finally in my hands, the anticipation was killing me.

Resident Evil 7 was everything I ever could have hoped for. That game was terrifying. It starts off very survival horror-ish and becomes a bit more action oriented by the end, but you know what? I'll take that over what we were given in RE5 and RE6. Even when it did seem more action-y at the end, it was still fun and my faith in Capcom was completely restored. They were still capable of making a really great Resident Evil game, and on top of that, they finally proved (to me, at least) that they don't have to follow the same old formula to be successful with this series.

Next up for Resident Evil is the remake of RE2, which will be released in January. I went to E3 in June and while I didn't get to play the demo (they cut off the line because it was so long), it was fun to see the mock RPD they set up there. I do have some reservations about the game (specifically, the camera) and I'm slightly disappointed that they're not going the REmake route with it where it's classic and mostly the same, with updated graphics and a few items switched around/things added, but I still think it will be a fun game and I like that they're including the option to use the original soundtrack (if you buy the deluxe edition).

I have a long, love-hate relationship with Resident Evil. The highs were really high and the lows were incredibly low. It's not my favorite horror series, but it's definitely in my top 5 and I am really excited to see where Capcom goes from here, now that I know they're still capable of creating installments that have new ideas while instilling the same sort of dread in me that the original games did. I can't wait to see what the remake of RE2 (and eventually RE8) will have in store for us.