Get Your RC Geek on with Wow! Stuff's Six-Legged Attacknid

I've ranted before about how the Terminator franchise really needs a much better selection of scale-accurate replicas of Skynet's vast army of kill 'bots, and I think that's especially true in the area of remote control (RC) toys. So far, there has only been one officially licensed RC toy replica of a Terminator vehicle, the aerial HK unit from Terminator Salvation; otherwise, the only other RC Terminator replicas that I know of are ones made by extremely tech-savvy fans.

However, even though we'll never see an official Lego Mindstorms version of a T-600 or a T-1 tank, there are other RC toys that toy collecting Terminator fans can use as substitutes to terrorize their action figure collections. A WooWee Robosapien toy could be used as a substitute for a Harvester, a quadcopter could be used as a substitute for an aerial HK, and a Kid Galaxy Cybercycle could be used as a substitute for a Moto-Terminator. Even the rarely seen HK Centurion and T-7T Tetrapod now have their own substitute with the Attacknid, which is part of the Wow! Stuff’s Combat Creatures line of RC toys. The Attacknid differs from the Centurion and Tetrapod in that it has six legs instead of four, but that doesn't it mean it is any less cool.

In addition to crawling like a mechanical insect, the 10 inch tall Attacknid features a rotating turret that launches discs up to 30 feet. It also has removable, customizable armor panels on each leg, and it shuts down if its "Battle Brain" is hit directly three times. The disc launcher and Battle Brain features are provided so that RC geeks can have fights between their Attacknid units; nevertheless, the Attacknid's disc launcher and 360 degree range of all-terrain mobility should provide hours of fun for shooting at action figures during an imaginary post-apocalyptic future war with a Skynet that outsources with Wow! Stuff.

Check out the video below to see the Attacknid in action, and you can learn more about this battling ‘bot toys on the official Combat Creatures site.

Goodbye, Bay Harbor Butcher: A Look Back at Dexter (2006 - 2013)

I remember reading a quote from Alfred Hitchcock a while back, although I can't find the exact source from where it originated. It was during an interview, and Hitchcock was asked about how to evoke an audience's sympathy for an anti-hero such as a criminal. He said that to have a sympathetic anti-hero, he can't just be what's normally thought of as a "bad guy"; he has to be the best at whatever vice he practices (e.g., bank robbery, art theft, high-profile assassinations, etc.) and, as long as he is portrayed by a handsome and charming actor, audiences will cheer the anti-hero along as long as he strives to maintain his reputation as the best. Hitchcock recognized that it's human nature to support hard work and success and his approach to anti-heroes proved that under the right circumstances, this support can be twisted around to cheer on theft, violence, excessive bloodshed, and death. Thus, while petty thieves, impoverished drug dealers and second-rate henchmen are the stuff of bit parts and small tragic dramas, expertly-trained assassins, international diamond thieves and rogue police officers who break all the rules to get the job done are romanticized and revered as superstars within the annals of pulp crime and suspense thrillers.

By that rationale, the TV series Dexter, which recently ended its eight season run on Showtime last weekend, gleefully pushed Hitchcock's approach to anti-heroes into the darkest and craziest corners of the horror genre. Charmingly played by Michael C. Hall, the titular character of Dexter Morgan built an audience of sympathetic viewers and impressed TV critics as he hacked and slashed his way through the criminal underbelly of Miami. Even though this plot summary sounds like the stuff of low-budget grindhouse horror, the creators of the series built enough twists into Dexter, his story and his supporting cast to make him approachable and even likable--likable enough that many fans were angered over how he didn't have a happily-ever-after ending, regardless of the fact that Dexter never stopped being a monster during the entirety of the series. Somewhere out there, Hitchcock is smiling from ear to ear.

Read on for my review of Dexter, and why I think that it's the boldest horror TV show to date. (Warning: There are many spoilers in this post.)

Dexter is a shamelessly manipulative show. Sure, it has plenty of plot contrivances to explain how Dexter gets both in and out of certain situations, but it is at its most manipulative in its central premise. The series begins with Dexter in his mid-thirties, which indicates that he's been successfully pulling the wool over Miami Metro Police Department's collective eyes for a very long time before the first episode begins. Furthermore, the show emphasizes Dexter's rigorous adherence to "The Code", a code of behavior that was taught to him by his adopted police officer Harry Morgan (James Remar), a code that stresses that only guilty people deserve to die. (Even though Harry is dead during the series, he appears frequently in the mind of Dexter to remind him of how important The Code is.)

By setting him up as a vigilante who "cleans up" the messes that the flawed legal system leaves behind (i.e., violent criminals who are obviously guilty but don't go to jail due to glitches in the system), Dexter does things that make him sympathetic in the eyes of viewers and even other characters within the show. Like any other serial killer, Dexter knows how to stalk human prey, set up portable "kill rooms", and successfully dispose of bodies; yet because he deliberately kills people who are a) guilty, b) let go by law enforcement due to technicalities, and c) cannot hurt anyone else after they die, audiences can appreciate Dexter's expertise in vigilante justice--even if Dexter's actions are motivated by a bloodlust for murder and not a desire for justice. (Think back to the character of Harry Tasker in True Lies: He's killed many people, "but they were all bad.")

Stories need to have an appealing lead character to build audience support; if the story is told in the form of a serialized TV narrative, then the audience support has to be maintained during the course of the series in order to keep the ratings high. To put Dexter into the context of Hitchcock's anti-hero type, Dexter Morgan's appeal at the beginning of the series largely stems from the fact that he's the best at what he does (e.g., he amassed a sizable body count while working for the Miami Metro Police Department but has neither been suspected nor caught in the act) and he produces outcomes with which most audiences would sympathize if not completely support. As with most TV dramas that center around a flawed lead character, audiences have come to expect the character to seek some sort of redemption as part of his or her development as the series progresses. In the case of Dexter, the show portrays Dexter as a man who was severely damaged psychologically at a very young age and is trying to grow into something more like a normal human being; since he is already the best serial killer he can be, the audience reaction (as Hitchcock anticipated) is to cheer him on in his efforts to become something more than that. But since Dexter is essentially a horror show about a man who is a monster that hides in plain sight, things aren't so simple.

Even though articles and critics have lumped it together with other dark, violent cable TV dramas such as The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, Dexter is a dramatic horror show and not a horrific drama series. I say this because of its close formulaic similarities to other horror TV series. Whether you're talking about Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The X-Files or Supernatural, the usual premise of a horror TV show involves characters balancing their lives between mundane, everyday reality and a parallel, coexisting reality that is populated by murderous, terrifying monsters. Dexter also bears similarities to horror shows such as Forever Knight, Angel and Moonlight where the protagonist is a monster who is looking for redemption by not killing innocent people and striving to become human.

The key differences between Dexter and other horror TV series are 1) all of the monsters are human (not a single extraterrestrial or paranormal entity in the bunch) and 2) not only is the lead character a monster, but he never stops being a monster and it's doubtful that he genuinely understands the difference between "being normal" and having a conscience. That's the running morbid joke behind Dexter Morgan: He frequently ponders the idea of what it means to be a regular human being--having a spouse and children, maintaining a job and close friendships, etc.--but in his eyes, being normal never completely equates to being sane.

Hitchcock's model of the anti-hero aside, I think that Dexter Morgan's antecedent is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the sizable horror subgenre of interpretations and reimagining that have followed it. Since the first season, I saw many similarities behind Dexter and Frankenstein's monster in that both were made to appear and behave human, but the flawed intentions and questionable methodology behind their creation inevitably leads to tragedy and death. In a sense, Dexter is the equal and opposite of Data, the android from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Star Trek and its spinoffs regularly used non-human characters to explore different aspects of what it means to be human; in the case of Data, he's an android who sees humanity as a standard to emulate and thus attempts to do things that humans would do (e.g., tell jokes, play music, go on dates, take care of a pet, have a child, etc.) but from a different, mechanical perspective. No matter how often he fails at being human due to his inherent limitations as a non-organic being, he continues to strive for human-ness and the Next Generation narrative regards his endeavor as a commendable one. Dexter also seeks to better understand what it means to be a normal human being, but he does so with the intent of finding better ways to accommodate his murderous tendencies; he's the serial killer who, as the saying goes, "wants to have it all". On the other hand, Dexter would have a kindred spirit in Cameron, the cyborg assassin from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. No matter how much both of these characters would like to appear and feel human, they can't get past the immutable fact that they were built (one literally, the other figuratively) to infiltrate groups of people and kill, kill, kill.

To follow the show's overarching logic, Dexter began violating The Code when he started to take a personal interest in the villains he hunts and aimed to incorporate aspects of his public life into his serial killer life in order to be a more complete human being. This began in the first season when he learned that the Ice Truck Killer (Christian Camargo) was his own biological brother, and then continued to spiral out of control in the subsequent seasons. In season 3, he created a killer in Miguel Prado (Jimmy Smits) when trying to find a close friend who could truly understand him; in season 4, his attempt to understand how to balance serial murder with family life by closely observing and directly interacting with the Trinity Killer (John Lithgow) wound up tearing Dexter's own family apart. With each attempt to improve himself through the interaction with other killers, more innocent people wound up dead--Doakes (Erik King), Ellen Wolf (Anne Ramsay), Rita (Julie Benz), LaGuerta (Lauren Vélez), and so on--and that is an unmistakable violation of The Code, even if these violations were not committed by Dexter's own hand.

The appearance in season 8 of Dr. Evelyn Vogel (Charlotte Rampling), the original creator of The Code, emphasizes the point that the series has been hinting at the entire time: that if Dexter had accepted his identity as a serial killer and behaved according to the stipulations of The Code, he could have spent the rest of his days as, as Vogel put it, "the perfect serial killer". Then again, by seeing how Dexter tried to change his modus operandi to become more normal during the series, it could be argued that the success of The Code was what led Dexter into thinking that he could eventually be something more than a serial killer of criminals. It's a very "meta" situation: a code of behavior that's designed to help an insane man remain free in a sane world also leads the man into believing that he can actually be sane while still doing insane things.

Each of these details surrounding Dexter ultimately led up to his grand epiphany in the final episode: to be truly human is to experience the need for redemption after committing horrible acts. Redemption only comes through a sense of remorse, remorse deep enough to spur meaningful and lasting acts of contrition. Dexter has felt guilt and regret from time to time, but none of those instances lasted. Take the recurring presence of Harry, for example: Even after learning that his adopted father committed suicide after witnessing the monster he created, Dexter still kept Harry as the spiritual face of The Code without a hint of remorse about his role in Harry's death. Perhaps his most misguided and twisted attempt at balancing normalcy and insanity happened after his sister Deb (Jennifer Carpenter) learned of his serial killing, and he did everything he could to get her to accept what he is. The end result left Deb an emotional and morally-compromised wreck, all so that Dexter could maintain a relationship with his sister without having to go to jail or be held accountable for his crimes in any way. His actions ultimately led up to his mercy killing of Deb in the hospital in the show's finale, although you could argue that he's been slowly killing Deb during the last two seasons anyway.

It may seem anti-climactic, but Dexter's realization in the last episode that he has never stopped being a monster to anyone, even the people who he believed he loved, is a significant and powerful conclusion to a show like Dexter. Unfortunately, for Dexter to finally understand the idea of remorse--no matter how briefly, and after eight gruesome seasons--was not fully grasped by everyone. As far as Salon's Daniel D'Addario is concerned, "[Dexter's] recent conclusion seemed plucked from the clear blue sky -- Dexter ran off to become a lumberjack, unpunished and abandoning his family." (To go back to the Frankenstein analogy, I think that the series ending with Dexter sailing out to sea into a hurricane with his dead sister Deb bears strong similarities to the ending of Shelley's novel, where the grieving monster drifts into the Arctic waters after seeing his creator's broken, dead body.)

Dexter isn't the perfect series. It had plenty of subplots that meander and go nowhere, as well as characters making decisions that strain credibility. I'm particularly disappointed that we didn't get to spend more time with Zach Hamilton (Sam Underwood), Dexter's "apprentice", and with Vogel. Even though it is indicated later that Vogel devised The Code for Dexter as a way of compensating for her own serial killer son Daniel (Darri Ingolfsson), it's also indicated that she spent at least 25 years experimenting with the idea of turning serial killers into "productive" members of society. I would have loved to have learned more about how her experiments and their underlying ideology evolved over time, as well as how many other Dexters she tried to create.

What Dexter did is difficult to accomplish, largely because most audiences and critics won't anticipate or understand what the show's creators and writers have done or why they did it in the first place. For example, as stated in the series finale recap by James Hibberd in Entertainment Weekly, "The past few seasons it's felt like the writers still think Dexter is a sympathetic hero whose needs are more important than any other character's despite the innocent people who have died along the way to support his addiction." No, the writers never thought that Dexter was a sympathetic character; they just applied Hitchcock's anti-hero philosophy to a very sinister scenario for eight seasons with high ratings, an avid fan base, and critical accolades. If that sounds crazy to you, it’s because it really is crazy--the cast and crew behind Dexter wouldn't had have it any other way.

Alien Abductees Get Even in Altered (2006)

As movie monsters go, filmmakers have gotten plenty of mileage from the concept of extraterrestrial threats. There have been countless movies about high-tech alien invaders (War of the Worlds, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers), parasitic alien biology (Alien, The Thing), and too-close-for-comfort contact with an alien intelligence (Fire in the Sky, The Fourth Kind). In the midst of this crowded field of alien terrors is Altered, a 2006 creature feature that was directed and co-written by Eduardo Sánchez, co-writer and co-director of The Blair Witch Project.

Altered is about four men who were abducted and tortured by alien visitors when they were teenagers. After years of unsuccessfully coping with the trauma they endured, three of the men decide to hunt down and capture one of the visitors as an act of retribution; yet once they capture an alien, they're not completely sure of what they should do next. To make matters worse, their alien captive isn't quite as helpless as he looks and he has some sinister plans of his own ....

I'm recommending Altered to creature feature fans for many reasons. It's a well-made film that takes a unique approach to both alien horror movies and modern alien abduction lore. It effectively uses practical effects to bring its alien menace to life (no CGI here), and it also does an excellent job at balancing the horror with some bits of clever humor. Some scenes feature inventive examples of splatstick humor, and there are a few bits of redneck humor because the abductees in this movie are working class southern white men. However, this is not Tucker and Dale vs. Evil--Altered is a tale of terror at its core. In fact, some of the concepts and visuals in this movie reminded me of Scanners and The Fly, two classic "body horror" films by David Cronenberg.

Because most horror films feature characters who are being stalked by and defending themselves from a monster, the movie's story about men who search for and capture a monster makes it very different from most other films of its kind. Even though Altered is a horror movie, the pacing of its story reminded me fatalistic pulp crime dramas that begin with a major event (e.g., a bank heist gone wrong) and then subsequently unravel as the protagonists attempt and repeatedly fail to cope with the events they set in motion. The film also lets you understand the characters and the bitter motivations behind their actions. While hunting extremely deadly monsters sounds like something only a fool would do, you come to realize how the abduction left the main characters so broken in their adulthood that alien hunting has become the only meaningful thing left for them to do with their lives.

Altered ranks alongside Abominable and Alien Raiders as one of the better low-budget creature features to be released within the last ten years. It's everything that big-budget alien movies such as Signs and Dreamcatcher should have been but weren't, proving that some of the best horror films out there are the ones that never made it to national movie theater chains.

Toy Collecting Reaches a New Level of Excess with Gentle Giant's Six Foot Kenner Stormtrooper Action Figure

Last year, I posted two rants (click here and here) about Gentle Giant's release of "Jumbo" 12 inch replicas of 3 and 3/4 inch figures from Kenner's Star Wars toy line that was released during the late 70s. I couldn't--and still can't--comprehend the appeal of buying a larger scale replica of an action figure at a price point that's ridiculously higher than the original.

Of course, leave it up to me to underestimate the power of the toy collectors market. Since my 2012 rants, the 12 inch Jumbo line has expanded to include replicas of many Kenner figures from Empire Strikes Back (including the Wampa) and it looks like it will go on to include many Kenner Return of the Jedi figure replicas as well. With the Jumbo series proving to be a hit, Gentle Giant has decided to get even giant-er by releasing a limited edition six foot tall replica of Kenner's Stormtrooper action figure (complete with removable blaster), which will be released in 2014 for $2,300. To put it in another perspective, Gentle Giant is making an expensive six foot version of a toy that was originally less than four inches high and sold for a few bucks. The original Stormtrooper action figure can sit in Kenner's Star Wars vehicle toys; the giant Stormtrooper action figure can sit next to you on your couch.

Yes, really. (Photos courtesy of Galactic Hunter.)

If anything, the giant Stormtrooper action figure replica is a textbook example of geek exorbitance. I can understand releasing Alien action figures based on the scale of Kenner action figures, or releasing classic Battlestar Galactica action figures based on the scale of Mego action figures. But an action figure replica that literally towers over the demographic group for which the figure was originally designed and costs more than most home appliances? Seriously?

Two Great Tron Games That Aren't Really Tron Games: escapeVektor and Light Trax

After all these years, I'm still baffled over Disney's mishandling of the Tron franchise: Given the original film's premise and the popularity of its first arcade game, Disney could have used Tron to break into the video game market through a series of games set inside of a computer world. Instead, Disney's licensing of Tron games has been uneven and largely underwhelming. After the original arcade game in 1982, there was another arcade game in 1983, Discs of Tron, and a handful of Tron titles for the Atari and Intellivision home consoles. That batch of games was followed by ... 20 years of nothing.

The impressive Tron 2.0 came out in 2003 but between lackluster sales and poor support from Disney, that game quickly faded into cult classic status while other game franchises thrived. Since Tron 2.0, Tron characters have appeared from time to time in the Kingdom Hearts video game series, and a selection of tie-in games of varying quality were released under the collective Tron: Evolution title when the Tron: Legacy movie came out in 2010.

I'm sure that more tie-in games will be released for the upcoming Tron 3, but that's part of the problem: They're tie-in games for a movie series, not games that are part of an ongoing, stand-alone video game series. Between that and Disney's prompt cancellation of the incredible yet short-lived Tron: Uprising animated series--a series that could have provided game developers with plenty of fantastic ideas, plots and settings--it appears that Disney has relegated the virtual world of Tron to the silver screen and video game cameos and tie-ins. (I've also been disappointed how Disney let the Epic Mickey video game series go to waste, but I'll save that for another rant.)

Nevertheless, the slick neon-lit style of Tron has influenced the look and game play of many video games throughout the years, and this post highlights two that I've recently found that adhere to both the look and the metaphorical, computer-based logic of the Tron-iverse: escapeVektor by Nnooo and Light Trax by Skip Ltd. Read on for my review of these two games, and why Tron fans should add them to their video game collections.

escapeVektor was released through WiiWare for the Nintendo Wii in 2011 and for the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita in 2012. In this game, players guide a character named Vektor, who is trapped inside of a computer’s central processing unit (CPU), through a series of maze-like digital landscapes with the hope of escape. However, the CPU has other plans and dispatches a series of enemies--Patrols, Hunters, and Interceptors--to foil Vektor’s plans. Click here to learn more at the official escapeVektor site, where you can also purchase the game’s chiptune soundtrack.

As a game, escapeVektor is reminiscent of two 80s era arcade classics, Pac-Man and Qix. Yet the look and game play logic of escapeVektor follows the visual style and plot of the original Tron movie so closely that it might as well be a tie-in. Between the neon-lit backgrounds, an electronic music soundtrack, a selection of data-based enemies of varying degrees of intelligence and capability, and a hero who is navigating his way through a labyrinthine world that's ruled by an oppressive master control program, escapeVektor is almost like an abstract, minimalist retelling of Tron.

What's your Vektor, Victor?

---

Light Trax is part of a series of games that were released under the collective title Art Style. It is a remake/upgrade of Dotstream, a game that was part of Skid Ltd.'s bit Generations series for Nintendo's Game Boy Advance, and it was released through WiiWare for the Nintendo Wii in 2010.

Playing Light Trax is like watching a light cycle race from a great distance: A group of bright pastel lines race against each other and avoid a variety of obstacles on a black-and-neon landscape. Light Trax is ostensibly a racing game but like everything in the Tron-iverse, it has its own peculiar logic. The lines in Light Trax can only accelerate their speed by running parallel to another line, but they will decelerate if they collide with or are cut off by another line. The race courses themselves defy gravity, twisting and turning in all sorts of directions in a seemingly endless expanse of 3D digital space.

In addition to the race courses and race circuit series, the game also provides a selection of "Freeway" levels, where players can guide their line along the freeways that connect the different race circuits to each other. While the same rules of acceleration and deceleration apply to the freeways, players can either race to a specific destination through the freeways within a set period of time or they can choose to just "cruise" the freeways as they glide their way through vertigo-inducing trajectories. Imagine watching Tron, Flynn, Beck or some other Tron-inverse character riding a light bike on a mega-highway that connects different areas of the Grid, and that’s how these levels feel. Click here to listen to a selection of chiptune music from the game’s soundtrack.

A Freeway level from Light Trax (virtual barf bag not included).

Neither escapeVektor nor Light Trax are official Tron games, but they capture the aesthetic of the franchise so well that they should provide many Tron fans with a satisfying game experience. Given how poorly Disney has handled the Tron franchise overall, I’m happy to take what I can get.

Weekend Detention Becomes a Death Sentence in Bad Kids Go to Hell (2012)

When a movie opens with a SWAT team bursting into a school library to find a teenager holding a bloody fire ax and surrounded by corpses--one of which being so fresh that it hasn't even collapsed to the floor yet--you know you're in for something different. Such is the case of Bad Kids Go to Hell, a 2012 movie that was directed and co-written by Matthew Spradlin. Spradlin based this movie on his best-selling graphic novel of the same name; however, because I haven't read the graphic novel yet, I can't say how faithful the movie is to its source material and which one is better.

After its jarring first scene, Bad Kids Go to Hell goes back eight hours to when six students at Crestview Academy, an upper-class private school, arrive for a day-long session of Saturday detention in their school's library. When one of them suddenly dies under suspicious circumstances, the other students begin to fear for their own lives. Is there a killer in their midst, or is something else afoot that's orchestrating their collective demise?

While I was watching Bad Kids Go to Hell, I had a tough time pinning down what kind of movie it wanted to be. It has plenty of horrific scenes and imagery, although it does not have the mood of a horror film; it doesn't take itself too seriously, but it's neither a comedy nor a horror film parody either. After seeing the final scenes, what I can say it that it is an extremely misanthropic and dark humored morality play. Many have viewed this film as a horror genre version of The Breakfast Club (1985), but its overtly sardonic attitude toward its story and characters puts it in the same class as another 80s teen movie, Heathers (1988).

What impressed me the most about this movie is its plot adheres to standard teen horror conventions, and then twists them around to the point where you’re not completely sure of what to expect. Like most teen horror films, the kids who are promiscuous, drink alcohol and do drugs wind up dead in one way or another; however, unlike most teen horror films that keep their characters and plots simple, Bad Kids Go to Hell provides plenty of background details (both explicit and subtle, and through dialog, flashbacks and visual cues) about how the characters connect to each other and the school's own sinister history, and how these relationships set the stage for what happens during Saturday detention. Watching Bad Kids Go to Hell is like watching an elaborate, Rube Goldberg story configuration click together sequentially, plot point by plot point, to deliver a gleefully pitch-black ending. Sure, some of the subplots feel unnecessarily convoluted and not all of the jokes hit their marks, but rarely have I ever seen such an elaborate contraption in the service of such morbid and cynical humor. When I say that this film is cynical, I cannot stress it enough; in fact, even though it looks and feels like a teen movie, this film is so cynical that I doubt most teens would fully understand or appreciate what it is trying to do.

Bad Kids Go to Hell isn't a flawless film; I've seen better blends of horror and comedy than this one, and it's not nearly as ambitious or insane as another recent offbeat teen film, Detention (2012). Then again, I love grim-humored satire that proudly wears its cynicism on its sleeve, so I enjoyed watching this movie even if it doesn't completely work. If you like that kind of humor too, then you should give Bad Kids Go to Hell a look.

Xevious Reborn: Hot Wheels RC Terrain Twister

It's amazing how something things never go away. They just appear again under a different name.

Early this year, I did a retrospective piece about Namco's classic arcade game Xevious, its sequels, spin-offs and model kits. One of the items that I looked at was a Grobda model kit, a kit based on one of the enemy vehicles in Xevious that also had its own spin-off arcade game Grobda. As you can see in the model picture below, a Grobda tank doesn't have continuous track treads; instead, it has two spinning corkscrew tubes that propel it across terrain and over the water.

The Grobda tank makes for an interesting-looking detail in a video game, but who would want to actually see something like this move in the real world? Fast forward to today, where we now have the Hot Wheels RC Terrain Twister toy, which I have pictured below. Notice any similarities?

Apparently, this toy has been around for a while. It was first released almost a decade ago by Tyco under the same name "Terrain Twister", and it has recently been re-released under the Hot Wheels license. It's advertised as an RC toy that can go through dirt, sand, grass, water and snow, although I hear that it doesn't do very well on smoother surfaces. If you're a die-hard fan of the Xevious and Grobda games, you might want to give this toy a try. Not only does it actually move, but it's also much, much cheaper and easier to find than the official R.C. Berg Grobda model kit that I posted above.

Support Interactive Digital Insanity Through the Neverending Nightmares Kickstarter Campaign

Just as the falling prices of film and video production equipment has spurred the work of independent filmmakers, the falling prices of computer technology has likewise spurred the work of independent video game developers. Of particular note is an upcoming project called Neverending Nightmares by Matt Gilgenbach, an indie horror game that is advertised as being "inspired by the developer's battle with mental illness." Sweet!

According to the description provided inspired by Gilgenbach on the Kickstarter page he set up to raise funds for his game, "Neverending Nightmares is a psychological horror game inspired by the real horror of my battle with obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression. It features a truly interactive narrative structure allowing you to shape the outcome of the game. It will take the psychological horror genre in a new direction by eschewing many traditions that don’t contribute to creating an immersive horrifying experience such as limited save points, item collection/ammo hoarding, and puzzle solving. ... The gameplay focus is on exploration. Horror is amplified by vulnerability, so you won't be picking up guns and shooting monsters. While there may be some very light combat mechanics, you will have to work to avoid confrontation. ... We want to make a game that is accessible and fun for a wide variety of skill levels. In Neverending Nightmares, the punishment for death is that you either wake up in the same nightmare (like a checkpoint) or "dying" will transport you to a different branch in our narrative than if you had succeeded."

Since I'm a huge fan of exploration-based horror games that emphasize madness and vulnerability (games like Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and Calling), I'm excited to see what Neverending Nightmares will be like once it is completed. Click here to go to the Neverending Nightmares Kickstarter page, which features more information about the game such as gameplay, controls, art style, and more. The page also features a disturbing teaser video, which you can see in the window below.

Phantom Sharks and Mutant Alligators Come to Life at Shark City Ozark

For as glamorous as it looks from the outside, the entertainment industry is an extremely tough business. For every international superstar, there are thousands of actors, directors, writers and production crew members who are struggling to get by in such a demanding, hyper-competitive business. This is especially true for practical special effects artists: With Hollywood's desire to go digital, artists who aim to keep practical effects alive in both movies and television are facing increasingly steeper challenges from production companies that see CGI as sure-fire means of saving time and money--albeit at the steep expense of quality effects work and fan satisfaction.

Entering the fray of practical special effects services is Shark City Ozark (SCO), a creature effects shop in Missouri. I've been in contact with SCO about their latest projects, the recent SyFy production of Ghost Shark (read my review here) and the upcoming Ragin' Cajun Redneck Gators, which airs on SyFy this Thursday, September 5th at 9 p.m. (Fans of the 1959 creature feature Alligator People should check out Redneck Gators, since both films seem to be cut from similar creative cloth.) SCO provided mechanical creature effects work for both films and given my fascination with mechanical monsters, SCO let me post some of their behind-the-scenes production photos of their work and shared some insights with me about what it's like to break into a field where hands-on monster making isn't nearly as valued as it should be. Click below to continue.

If you're familiar with SCO's work with their mechanical shark maquettes from Jaws and Jaws 2, then you know that the folks at SCO know their movie sharks. Thus, the scaled-sized mechanical shark that SCO provided for Ghost Shark is clearly a labor of love, even if the film doesn't do the shark itself justice. Here are some examples of conceptual art by SCO for Ghost Shark:

When I contacted SCO owner Mike Schultz about SCO's mechanical shark, he mentioned a few details to me that didn't make it into the film. "I built him so he could bend into a deep 'C' curve and thrash around and snap like a Deep Blue Sea Mako, but by the time we went before camera all he was allowed to do was shake his head a little and barely snap his jaws," he told me. "We knew when we got the script what we were in for, but how often does one get the chance to make a mechanical shark for a film?!"

As you can see from the photos above, SCO's mechanical shark was mostly inserted into the movie through green screen shots. (Given its amount of detail and its original range of motion, it's a shame that this shark wasn't around for the miniature shots in Jaws 3D.) Of course, SCO didn't just provide a shark that could do dry green screen work--it could do water shots as well:

As someone who is all thumbs with even the simplest of plastic model kits, my head spins to consider how someone can make both movie-accurate mechanical shark collectibles and a movie-ready mechanical shark that works for both dry and wet shots. Did I also happen to mention that unlike another mechanical shark named "Bruce", SCO's shark never broke down once during production? "I provided extensive art design and story-boarding for almost every key sequence," Schultz mentioned. "Ghost Shark required extensive design work and story-boarding with the shark attack sequences, although much of the action simply ended up as transparent blurs shooting through the frame. I'm not really sure why so few ideas made it to the final print. Then again, when schedules are changed four times a day and things must be done on such a tight deadline, I can understand why much of what we loved, planned for and of what they wanted never made it to print. You just do the best that you can and move to the next need to fulfill."

So with Ghost Shark done, what can we expect this week from Ragin' Cajun Redneck Gators? Unfortunately, Schultz doesn't know. "I am not sure what parts of my gator work will air at this point," he said. "They contacted me really late in production. I actually had to set aside painting the nearly completed ghost shark to make these various gators and gator parts for them and then return back to finish the shark, which was due on another set only days later--and with us running it! I do know that they filmed everything we built and shipped to them, but how much will survive has us really wondering. We'll just have to watch with everybody else."

According to Schultz, SCO made a gator head, tail, and 4-foot long dead baby gator prop for Redneck Gators. Here are some pictures of the concept art and completed work:

"We're really proud of our polyfoam-gators," Schultz added. "When you look at our gators closely, you will see that every scale and wrinkle and armor plate is anatomically correct. We did not make all of the gators for the film, but what we built looks real and scary. The actors did not have to pretend that something was there either. There is very little that cannot be done with a realistic looking practical creature right there on the same set with the actors and crew."

So with so much work to do and so little time to do it, will SCO keep making monsters for future creature features? Absolutely! "I want to keep doing these things," Schultz told me. "These have been roller-coaster adventures for all of us. We'll endure the ever-changing schedules, the crazy scripts, the rushed late hours and last second creature changes. We want to be there on location again. We want to be racing those insane deadlines and trying to make things better and memorable. We love the green screen and the hot stage lights and the cold stale food. We love breathing life into polyfoam and silicon. We build these living things and get to travel to location and operate them. We want these same people to call us back and we want to make more monsters for them."

Click here to see more behind-the-scenes photos from Ghost Shark and Ragin' Cajun Redneck Gator, as well as photos for another upcoming production called Bering Sea Beast.