monster

11 Sep

How Malignant’s Monster Calls Back to Stephen King

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This Malignant article contains spoilers. Malignant has a twist so wild you need to see it to believe it. Seriously, stop reading right now if you have even the faintest interest in watching James Wan‘s latest horror offering. You really don’t want to spoil this for yourself. Sure, you’ll either really love or absolutely hate the movie’s batshit third act, but the experience of watching the twist for the first time is worth the price of admission. If you have watched the movie, maybe you left as astonished as I did. After all, the first two thirds of the movie…

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29 Aug

Metroid Dread Revives Classic Boss Monster and Unleashes Mysterious Chozo Villain

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Metroid Dread is an unexpected new installment in the original mainline series that goes all the way back to the Samus Aran’s debut on the NES in 1986. Picking up threads from Metroid, Metroid II, Super Metroid, and Metroid Fusion, the new 2D side-scroller follows Samus on the trail of the X parasite once again. After the Galactic Federation loses contact with an EMMI (Extraplanetary Multiform Mobile Identifiers) unit sent to investigate the planet ZDR, where the X parasite from Fusion is rumored to have survived, Samus takes on the mission herself, and quickly finds dangers and terrors unimaginable. “The…

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04 Aug

Godzilla Vs. Kong Review: Not Much Of A Franchise Capstone, But Definitely A Cool Monster Movie

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13 May

Link Tank: Monster on Netflix Is a Must-Watch Legal Drama Film

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Monster on Netflix is a courtroom drama film about the all-too-familiar story of a Black teenager versus America’s criminal justice system. “Three years after its debut at the Sundance Film Festival and a short-lived name change to All Rise, Monster has finally landed on Netflix. Based on Walter Dean Myers’ 1999 novel of the same name, the legal drama shoehorns the viewer into a horrifying, yet all-too-familiar, scenario in which a Black teenager named Steve Harmon (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) is facing decades in prison while on trial for a crime that he swears he hasn’t committed.” Read more at Thrillist.…

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07 May

Monster Review: Netflix Film Examines Racism in the Justice System

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Much like its protagonist, Anthony Mandler’s Monster is a film obsessed with aesthetics. Main character Steve Harmon says he makes sense of his humanity through understanding the shapes and textures of the world around him, and with an occasionally heavy hand, director Mandler similarly captures Steve’s world through a stylized lens. It’s there in the postcard perfect sunsets of a youth spent growing up in Harlem, and it’s here again in the film’s unnaturally gray, sterile courtroom scenes. But the hardness of Monster, which speaks to the very dehumanizing nature of its title, comes from where we’re first introduced to…

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29 Mar

Monster Hunter Rise Monster List: Every Monster in the Game

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Monster Hunter Rise is finally here, which means that it’s time for millions of fans old and new to try to hunter every monster in the game and turn them into some of the swankiest (and weirdest) armor and weapons you’ll ever see. If you’re new to Monster Hunter and Rise is your first time exploring this series, then you’ll likely be blown away by both the creative design of the game’s monsters and the sheer number of them spread throughout the title’s sizeable world. While Rise doesn’t feature nearly as many monsters as some of the franchise’s older handheld…

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26 Mar

Monster Hunter Rise Co-op: How to Play With Friends

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Monster Hunter Rise follows in the footsteps of Monster Hunter World by offering a larger world and other modern improvements, but the game retains one of the franchise’s best features by allowing you to adventure with friends via co-op gameplay. Millions of fans agree that Monster Hunter is just better with friends, and it’s hard to argue that the game just feels best when you’ve got a full squad (which, in this case, is four players) by your side. Still, the benefits of Monster Hunter‘s co-op options don’t mean much if you’re not able to access them in the first…

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26 Mar

Monster Hunter Rise: How to Choose Your First Weapons

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Monster Hunter Rise continues this series’ tradition of offering a complex series of mechanics wrapped in a stylish package that emphasizes absurdity and fun. Before you can dive into everything that makes this franchise famous, though, you’re going to have to choose which of Monster Hunter Rise‘s weapons are right for you. While Monster Hunter Rise doesn’t make you commit to your starting weapon for the entire game, choosing the right weapon for you can make all the difference. That’s especially true if Rise is your first Monster Hunter game and you really want to give yourself a chance to…

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25 Mar

Monster Hunter’s History of Absolutely Ridiculous Weapons

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The release of Monster Hunter Rise is rightfully being celebrated for many reasons, but one of the best things about the release of any new Monster Hunter game is the chance to explore their extensive collections of ridiculous weapons. While there’s really no such thing as a “practical” Monster Hunter weapon (this is a franchise that loves to go far over the top), there’s a special class of weapons in this series that’s on another level in terms of absurdity. These weapons aren’t just giant creations that defy the laws of physics en route to conquering the most feared beasts…

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16 Mar

Psycho Goreman: Steve Kostanski on Building a Better Monster

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It’s rare that a horror-comedy film gets the attention it deserves. At least, not around the time that it’s released. Even the great ones tend to be labeled a “cult classic” later on, but mastering the genre can regularly lead to bigger things. We see that happen as often as we do because horror and comedy are deceptively hard to balance, and it stands to reason that if you could pull off that balancing act once, you might be able do it again combining other genres. Steve Kostanski has been in the movie business for the better part of two…

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15 Mar

Monster Madness: Vote for Your Favorite Monsters

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Every season is monster season in our hearts. But this March is a particularly good time to celebrate our enormous, scaly, and/or hairy friends. In the film world, the long-awaited Godzilla v. Kong arrives on March 31. Meanwhile on television, the final season of behemoth anime Attack on Titan is in the midst of its final season right now. Given that many of us are already primed for bracketology in March, we decided to create a bracket of our 32 favorite monsters for you, the monster-lover, to vote on.  In honor of Godzilla, Kong, and Attack on Titan’s many titans,…

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22 Feb

Godzilla vs. Kong: Inside the Monster Fight of the Century

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By now you’ve probably seen the Godzilla vs. Kong trailer. You know, the one where a giant ape not only punches a giant lizard in the face (and does what almost looks like the Henry Cavill arm-cocking maneuver) suggesting there’s a new contender for the title of “King of the Monsters.” Audiences will find out who wins when the film drops on HBO Max and in theaters on Mar. 26, 2021, but in a 2019 visit to the Australian production, Den of Geek learned there is more to the movie than a mere clash of Titans. Instead, executive producer Alex…

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21 Dec

Monster Hunter

Max SchindlerMovie reviewshunter, monster

Behind our world, there is another: a world of dangerous and powerful monsters that rule their domain with deadly ferocity. When an unexpected sandstorm transports Captain Artemis (Milla Jovovich) and her unit (TI Harris, Meagan Good, Diego Boneta) to a new world, the soldiers are shocked to discover that this hostile and unknown environment is home to enormous and terrifying monsters immune to their firepower. In their desperate battle for survival, the unit encounters the mysterious Hunter (Tony Jaa), whose unique skills allow him to stay one step ahead of the powerful creatures. As Artemis and Hunter slowly build trust,…

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16 Dec

Monster Hunter Review: Paul W.S. Anderson Lowers the Bar with Another Video Game Movie

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One can say this for director Paul W.S. Anderson: he’s consistent. His quarter-century-old filmography is one long litany of mediocrity or worse, often veering into unwatchability, and the fact that six of the 13 films he’s directed, including the new Monster Hunter, are based on video games tells you all you need to know about his esthetic. Monster Hunter, which Screen Gems is releasing into theaters as the COVID-19 pandemic rages worse than ever, is based on the 16-year-old video game franchise of the same name from Capcom (it happens to be the publisher’s second-best selling series after Resident Evil,…

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21 Oct

A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting: How to Craft a Scary Story For Children

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In the U.K., the pop culture phrase “behind the sofa” is used to refer to media that is scary enough to prompt kids to hide behind the nearest piece of furniture, but engaging enough to keep them from out-right fleeing the room. Strongly associated with Doctor Who, “behind the sofa” is a concept that can be applied far beyond the long-running science fiction series to speculative fiction (in particular horror) media targeted toward children and families. It’s perhaps a phrase British-American director Rachel Talalay, known for her work on some of NuWho’s most visually-ambitious installments, had in mind when directed…

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19 Oct

A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting

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When high school freshman Kelly Ferguson (Tamara Smart) reluctantly agrees to babysit Jacob Zellman (Ian Ho) on Halloween, the last thing she expects is to be recruited into an international secret society of babysitters who protect kids with special powers from monsters. In order to keep Jacob safe from harm, Kelly teams with no-nonsense chapter Vice President Liz Lerue (Oona Laurence), tech genius Berna Vincent (Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson), creature expert Cassie Zhen (Lynn Masako Cheng) and potions master Curtis Critter (Ty Consiglio) to defeat a Boogeyman known as "The Grand Guignol" (Tom Felton), a glamorous witch named "Peggy Drood" (Indya…

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16 Oct

A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting Review: A So-So Supernatural Babysitters Club

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It’s Halloween night, and the thing that most terrifies teenage misfit Kelly Ferguson (Tamara Smart) is making it through the popular kids’ party without being called “Monster Girl.” After the ill-advised choice to tell her peers about a traumatic incident of almost getting snatched by a monster as a child, the unfortunate nickname has stuck and tanked all hope of ever joining the in-crowd. It’s useful, then, that her mother (Crystal Balint) promised Kelly’s babysitting services to her ice queen boss Ms. Zellman (Tamsen McDonough) and her problem child Jacob (Ian Ho). But when that adorable child gets snatched by…

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14 Oct

Monster Hunter Movie Trailer Focuses on Monsters vs. Military Action

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The official trailer for the Monster Hunter movie has finally been revealed and it is…something. This Capcom adaptation is sure to turn some heads. Check out the trailer for yourself: “Behind our world, there is another: a world of dangerous and powerful monsters that rule their domain with deadly ferocity,” reads a description of the upcoming film. “When an unexpected sandstorm transports Captain Artemis (Milla Jovovich) and her unit (TI Harris, Meagan Good, Diego Boneta) to a new world, the soldiers are shocked to discover that this hostile and unknown environment is home to enormous and terrifying monsters immune to…

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06 Oct

Buff Monster And The Melty Misfits Are Going Jumbo

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Presented by: The Melty Misfits, creations of artist, painter, and street artist Buff Monster, exist in a brightly colored universe where whimsy and the macabre intermingle. The creations’ strangely cute, typically cyclopic, buck-toothed faces are set inside an ice-cream-based anatomy and, like the tasty treat from whence they evolved, they are always in a state of melting — which means, like life itself, their existence is fleeting.  The ephemeral nature of The Melty Misfits is especially appropriate considering, since 2012, they have made appearances on highly collectible, vintage-style, wax-pack sticker trading cards. Initially introduced as an homage to the Garbage…

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25 Sep

A Babysitter’s Guide To Monster Hunting Trailer Teases Family-Friendly Scares

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You’ve heard of the Babysitter’s Club, but have you heard of The Order of the Babysitters? It’s the super secret society babysitting society at the heart of Netflix‘s upcoming family horror film: A Babysitter’s Guide To Monster Hunting. The streamer just dropped the trailer for the film, which features Harry Potter’s Tom Felton as a very creepy nightmare man, aka Boogeyman, who kidnaps teenage protagonist Kelly’s (Tamara Smart) babysitting charge and promises to “unleash your nightmares on the world.” Yikes! Check it out… A Babysitter’s Guide To Monster Hunting is based on a series of books by Joe Ballarini, and…

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