MadCap's Comic Reviews - "Doctor Strange #1"

There are forces far, far beyond the realm of mortal understanding.  There are malignant powers out in the ether of creation so grand and terrible that even the deepest, darkest nightmares of humanity will not dare acknowledge that such horrors are possible.  When those entities come to close to the realm of humanity, they are met by a champion.  But - not unlike the universe of a certain Gallifreyan Time Lord - when the Marvel universe needs a champion, they don't call on the Avengers or the X-Men or any other such team.

When the gates of Hell burst open and the pillars of Heaven shake...

...when the whole of creation stands on the precipice of oblivion....

...when the very fabric of reality is being torn asunder....

...what you need...is a Doctor.

Doctor Stephen Strange, once a brilliant neurosurgeon who lost the use of his fine motor functions in a terrible accident, sought a cure and instead became something far greater - the Sorcerer Supreme of the Earth Dimension.  He is also one of my favorite characters in all of fiction ever.

This is actually Strange's second time having his own series, though it's been quite some time since he was last on his own.  For many years, he was a secondary character in Spider-Man (which is where I first came across him) and has been shipped around to various books in the Marvel universe since his series ended at some point in the 90s. But now, largely thanks to the fact that he's got a movie coming out next year, he's back! And it's about time the Doctor starting making house calls once again!

And he's off to a good start by saving the soul of a young man from a pack of demons who have possessed him while narrating about his backstory, catching up new readers with the cliff notes in a quick and concise way. Kudos to the creative team on using the older comic panels on the first page, really helps set the mood of the old Lee/Ditko stories of the 1960s, which I think is very faithfully homaged by the artwork of Christopher Bachalo and Timothy Townsend in this issue.

Also of note is the story, which is setting up the storyline in the right way. The good Doctor goes to the Bar With No Doors (not to be confused with the Bar With No Name), and learns from other sorcerers - namely Doctor Voodoo, Shaman, and Scarlet Witch - that more extra-dimensional occurrences like the boy being possessed by a whole pack of demons seem to be becoming alarmingly more common. Something is coming, though none of them know just what it might be. But still, it seems enough of a threat for supernatural creatures to be moving into the Earth dimension to avoid it, which speaks volumes.

We also do, in the Bar with No Doors, get some insight into Strange's psyche.  Keep in mind, while the rest of Marvel has (for the most part) operates on a floating timescale where stories in the past happened more recently (since trying to have a continuity that began in the 1939 stretch out realistically into the present with nobody aging in the meantime would be absolutely insane), Doctor Strange is one of the few that is exempt from this.  All of his stories, so far as I've read, are meant to be taking place on the publishing date...other hero and villain guest stars aside.

Immortal because of his duty as the Sorcerer Supreme, this is a man who has spent fifty-two years in constant battle with forces beyond mortal comprehension. It's rather akin to Linkara's analysis of Tommy Oliver in Power Rangers: Dino Thunder in his History of the Power Rangers series (which you can view here, it's really good stuff). Doctor Strange has been single-handedly fighting this battle against cosmic powers that would mow down the Avengers, the X-Men, and every other Marvel team for a half century.  But it's a war that really doesn't know any end.  As the old saying goes "there's always a bigger fish".

Having a duty that involves constantly fighting Cthulhu and pals on a regular basis has had a deep, resounding psychological effects on Strange. He mentions at one point how he's "vomited up pieces of [his] soul" and can't sleep for more than a few hours every night as proof that he's more than paid the cost of using magic. Even with how debilitating this can be to a person, Stephen still maintains his duty and seeks out the damned horrors that plague humanity, still chooses this life despite the fact that it has been slowly (or not so slowly) tearing away his own humanity piece by piece over the many years he's been doing it.

Mind you, I could just be reading too much into things, but I'd be very surprised if that was not what was intended by that scene and I really enjoy that it was addressed about the character.

And, to close things out, while the Doctor deals with a new task entirely, we get some scenes of a new enemy for him. In the "13th Dimension", a sorcerer by the name of Szandor Zoso tries to get a message out to someone, anyone of his attackers - the Empirikul. Unfortunately, he doesn't get far before he's attacked by some wolves with spiky, metallic harnesses on their backs and a group of those robots from the Doctor Who episode "The Girl Who Waited", led by a figured cloaked in black known only as "the Imperator".

And seriously, this guy is just badass from the jump.  He speaks all of three lines of dialogue, stops Zoso's message by blowing a hole in the wall, and then simply walks out to leave the clean up to his minions as Zoso's home burns to the ground from the explosion. If ever you needed a perfect introduction to your villain, this is definitely it. Kudos!

This is a triumphant return for Doctor Strange to a solo series and a wonderful set up for a series that I have high, high hopes for. Bravo!

...don't screw it up.

Doctor Strange #1 is now available from Marvel Comics wherever fine comic books are sold.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

From MadCap's Couch - "Supernatural: Bloody Mary"

What's that in the mirror? In the corner of your eye?

Y'know that whole thing about "even if you don't believe in it, you probably shouldn't be screwing around with it?"

Welcome to this episode in a nutshell.

We begin with four girls of preteen age playing a game of Truth or Dare, one of them being dared to go into the bathroom and say "Blood Mary" three times, segueing into a discussion of the various versions of the Bloody Mary legend. One of the girls goes in with only a candle for light.  She says the name twice, the candle begins to flicker, but she keeps on saying it a third time...whereupon her friends start to beat on her door because their grade A assholes.  The girl, Lily, comes out and they have a laugh, though her father arrives and asks her to keep it down.

Mr. Shoemaker, as he's called, is suddenly stalked by Sadako from The Ring, who appears only in mirrors...okay, yes, it's Blood Mary, but the style is (according to the showrunners at the time) admittedly done up to look like The Ring and the Japanese original film Ringu, so bonus points to them on that.  At the very least, it does look scary.  She appears only in mirrors at first, as per the legends.

Mr. Shoemaker, while taking some medicine, notices veins suddenly becoming more prominent in his face.  Downstairs, Lily's older sister sneaks in past her curfew and comes upstairs to find...a puddle of blood gushing out from under the bathroom door.  Opening the door, whatever she finds within makes her scream.

The teaser ends with Sam in bluescale, dreaming of Jessica's death as her voice demands to know "Why, Sam?".  However, he is woken up by Dean.  They're in Toledo, Ohio and have come to investigate the Shoemaker death.  Posing as med students, they bribe their way in and see the corpse.  The eyes have been liquified, and he suffered from intense cerebral bleeding.  They check the police report, too, and Sam brings up that it could very well just be a freak medical accident.

Dean reminds him of the universe that they're in.  They decide to go talk to the daughter.

They arrive smack in the middle of a wake, awkwardness abounding.  Donna, the older sister, is questioned by Sam and Dean with the usual stuff...and then Lily injects, insisting that it all happened because of her, because she summoned Blood Mary.  The boys check the house, discussing the Blood Mary legend and Sam saying that John never found evidence that there was any truth to it. They also mention how it's a strange variation on things for Shoemaker to be the one who died, seeing as Lily was the one to say the words.

The woman who was comforting Donna earlier comes up and gives the boys the third degree, not believing their cover story.  Sam confesses that they're investigating, and gives her their number.

More discussion of Blood Mary follows, the boys hitting the books.

Charlie, Donna's friend, is talking to another of their friends, Jill.  She teases her for thinking that Blood Mary could have killed Shoemaker and even goes into her bathroom to say the chant, ending with a scream and a laugh because asshole.  Charlie is naturally peeved as Jill is visited by the Sadako in her mirrors.  In one of them, as she gazes at her own reflection, her eye begins to bleed. As her reflection taunts her about a boy she killed.  She dies as her reflection looks on.

Charlie became the envy of every fangirl in a single scene.

Then, it's back to the bluescale dreams of Sam Winchester as Jessica once more burns on a ceiling and demands answers of Sam before he awakes. We get some brotherly snark as Sam deflects about his dream, focusing on the story.  Dean, however, has found nothing to match to the legend while Sam was sleeping.  He thinks that whatever's happening has nothing to do with Mary, it's just a coincidence...until they get a phone call from Charlie, who tells them of Jill's fate.  Jill did indeed die in the exact same matter as Mr. Shoemaker...after saying "Bloody Mary".

They manage to enlist her help, and Charlie helps them get into Jill's home to check around. In Jill's room, Sam and Dean break out the nightvision cameras and go checking with the EMF detector. On bathroom mirror, Sam finds markings and - with a black light - pulls away some of the backing to reveal some handprints and a name "Gary Bryman".  Charlie says she has no idea who that is.  In the next scene, however, Sam has hit the books and determined who Gary is...or rather, was...an eight year old boy who was killed in a hit and run two years ago.

Charlie recognizes it because of the vehicle mentioned...Jill's vehicle.

Back at the Shoemaker's place, Sam and Dean check the bathroom mirror and find a similarly hidden name - Linda Shoemaker.  They confront Donna, who says that her mother OD'd on sleeping pills and wants to hear nothing to the contrary.  The three begin to see links, since both Jill and Mr. Shoemaker had apparently murdered.  Dean begins checking through every database, even national, hoping to find some kind of connection.

Sam and Dean theorize that Mary, or whatever she is, punishes people with a very dark secret who gaze into the mirrors.  Eventually, thanks to the magic of the writers wanting the characters to advance in the plot, Dean hits on something - the death of a "Mary Worthington" in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where a handprint identical to those found at both Jill's and the Shoemakers' home was found at the scene, pressed into a mirror.

At Fort Wayne, Sam and Dean speak to an ex-cop who had worked on the case in question.  He questions their backstory of being reporters, but Sam - being the badass bookworm that he is - is able to make the story float with the facts that they've garnered thus far.  With that, the cop reveals his own personal view of what happened, taking out some old files for them.  He mentions some of the writing in the mirror near the handprint "Tre", and that it likely points to a man who had been a surgeon at the time by the name of Trevor Samson, who Mary was having an affair with.

Unfortunately, they were unable to prove it was him.

However, Mary was not buried - she was cremated.  Her mirror, however, was not destroyed or kept in an evidence lock up...but returned to her family...

We return to Donna and Charlie, Charlie trying to insist to Donna that Sam and Dean were only trying to help.  And Donna, being an infinite dumbass, says "Bloody Mary" three times to the mirror in their high school bathroom...which oddly causes Charlie to be stalked by Sadako.  In class, Charlie actually witnesses Bloody Mary in the mirrors, freaks out, and flees.

Back in the Impala, Sam has just wrapped up with Mary's brother, who is no longer in possession of the mirror, having sold it a week ago to an antique shop in Toledo.  There is some talk about the old urban myths about mirrors trapping spirits before Dean comes up with the plausible solution - find the mirror and smash it.

Lucky for him, the bad luck won't kick in for about five more seasons anyway.

They get a call from Charlie and rush to aid her, covering up every mirror and reflective surface in the motel.  Sam tries to calm her, even doing his best to assuage her fears that she's going to die.  Dean, on the other hand, questions her...not about how she came to be tormented by Mary, but why she is being tormented by Mary.  She has a backstory about a boyfriend who she got into a fight and he threatened to kill himself, her telling him to do so before leaving.  She feels horrible about it, obviously, not having believed that he'd actually do it.

"Sammy...so much porn! So fast!"

Her causing the murder directly or not, Charlie has a secret and thus is a target by Mary.  Sam comes up with the idea to summon Mary to her mirror and destroy that one.  Dean questions how that would even work, since she seems to be jumping around to all sorts of different mirrors.  Sam insists that Mary will come after him, and Dean finally decides to confront him about Jessica...namely that Sam blames himself for her death.  He tries to insist that it wasn't his fault and he shouldn't blame himself, though Sam cryptically says that he could have warned her and that Dean doesn't know the whole story.  Though Dean insists that he shouldn't do this, Sam is adamant.

Thus, the pair break into the antiques shop.  Inside, they find lots and lots of mirrors and begin to search for the right one...unaware that they've tripped a silent alarm.  They do find the mirror, however, and it's time to get to work.  Sam does the chant and prepares a crowbar...and we cut to commercial.

However, I have Netflix, so...

We come back, and Dean notices the lights of a cop car that just pulled up, instructing Sam to smash anything that moves before going to deal with it, rolling the heck out of his Bluff check, but the cops aren't buying it. He knocks them  out and heads back in.  In the mean time Sam, on the other hand, takes Dean's advice to heart and starts taking out mirrors while Mary torments him. True to form, his reflection begins to torment him over Jessica's death as his eye begins to bleed.  The secret is revealed: Sam's nightmares about Jessica aren't new, he's been having them for days before her death and he did nothing about them.

But because we need to finish up the episode, Dean drops in at the opportune moment to smash the mirror into a bunch of tiny pieces.  While Sam is not in the best of conditions, he's alive, and the pair start to leave...though not before Sadako comes through for the final showdown, inflicting pain on both the boys and seemingly gaining the upper hand before Dean grabs a mirror and shows her her reflection in it and her power works on her as well - the secret that she killed all those people making her dissolve into CGI jelly that Dean then drops the mirror down on.

Dean figures they have around 600 years bad luck after all this. And he's right, but it'll take about five years to star-oh, wait, I already did that joke.

Needless to say, we get the wrap up.  Charlie is free to live without fear of Mary's attacks and Sam tells her she ought to forgive herself for her boyfriend's death, saying that sometimes bad things just happen, some advice that Dean hopes Sam will take to heart.  Dean also asks to hear Sam's secret, but he keeps it to himself, and sees an apparition of Jessica on a street corner that then disappears...it is clear this is something Sam will carry with him for a long, long while...

Bloody Mary effectively serves as the first Sam-centric episode since Pilot. Supernatural does have, for better or for worse, a sort of formula to it.  Some episodes are Sam-centric, e.g. they focus on Sam and his subplots for the season, and some are Dean-centric, doing the same for him and it is generally quite easy to point out which one is which.  And yes, this does - to the show's credit - continue even into the Post-Kripke era.  It's a great tool that allows us to see from the two different perspectives of the brothers throughout the trials and tribulations that they face.

Okay Sam, the mirror is prone. Roll your attack.

Blood Mary is the first continuation of Sam's character arc from Pilot, wherein we learn more about Jessica's death - namely the prophetic dreams about it beforehand that Sam was having, which will be developed on later in the season, and Sam not being able to forgive himself for her death.  As I say, we'll get into that more later.  As for the episode itself, it's pretty good.  While defeating Mary by showing her her own reflection might seem a little cheesy, keep in mind that we're still in the early days of the show and that the rules for ghosts have not been written in stone quite yet.  It's also several steps above the usual "salt and burn" response we get in later episodes and seasons.

So yes, definitely give this one a watch.  Next week, we're going to get introduced to a new creature type and an event will  occur that will haunt Sam and Dean for years to come.

...seriously, just ask any Supernatural fan.  The writers will not let this one go, even after everyone else - including Sam and Dean - has long since stopped caring about it.

Supernatural is the property of the CW and Warner Bros.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "Friday the 13th" (2009)

I'll just go ahead and get this out of the way now  - I love this movie.

No, it's not the set up for a joke, I really do. Well, okay, love is strong. I really, however, do enjoy it. This is honestly a good reboot. I know that's gonna completely shock everyone, but I'm being genuine when I say that this movie is just about perfect as far as Friday the 13th gets. A full on reboot of the Friday the 13th franchise (maybe), again given to us by Platinum Dunes and New Line, and it actually comes out amazingly well.

...no, really, I'm not joking. This is actually better in my mind than the Nightmare remake we covered last week.

Set in the ever infamous Crystal Lake, we have a short scene in the beginning of Mrs. Voorhees (Nana Visitor) tormenting campers before getting her head chopped off - which was covered, so this isn't a spoiler - before a little boy finds a locket and hears her last words "Kill for mother".

And with that, we get right into the killing as a group of twenty somethings comes to Crystal Lake with the intention of partaking in the usual horror film activities of premarital sex, drinking, and partaking in a whole field of wacky weedus! But a man with a grain sack over his head (yes, Jason did not always have a hockey mask) and a machete is all too happy to set them back on the paths of righteousness and goodness by killing them all to death...y'know, like you do in such situations.

Weeks later, Clay Miller (Jared Padalecki) comes to Crystal Lake looking for his sister - one of those that were a victim of Jason. Also in attendance to be chopped up by Crystal Lake's resident human hibachi chef are a group of kids on a summer retreat to a lake house and are pretty much all there to partake in the aforementioned activities leading into hanging a "Please Kill Me!" sign around their necks. If you've seen any horror movies, this should be no surprise.

From there, it's a weird-hybrid of the first four original Friday movies, and I haven't seen a lot of criticism levied against this one as much as the Nightmare one. What few critiques I have seen for this, I agree with even less than I do those for that one. One of them being that Jason's not remotely smart enough to set snares and traps the way he does in a very Rambo-esque style. My answer to that is simple: Jason's a hunter.

He's a predator, and the humans have entered into his domain. It makes sense that he would adapt and learn these tricks to have a better grasp over his lands than those that trespass. Mind you, that doesn't mean I even pretend to know where the network of tunnels under the camp came from. One of the superfluous characters in the beginning mentions a mine but, other than that, there's nothing said about an old mine near Crystal Lake. They are pure plot convenience, so far as I can figure out, though it is nice that they actually bothered to try and work out an explanation for how Jason seems to get everywhere so quickly and without being seen.

The mines themselves also have a few "blink and you miss it" cameo items from previous Friday movies - such as Mark's wheelchair from Friday the 13th Part 2 - among other items from Jason's victims that make it difficult to say if this film is a straight up reboot or if it's merely a sequel that can be placed in at some point.  Then again, it also may just be fanservice given the fact that a great deal of this film homages the original four. Still, it was a nice touch worth pointing out.

Beyond that, of course, it's pretty much a cookie cutter, paint by numbers Friday film. It's exactly what you expect and would want, even in terms of body count. So even the "they changed everything" complaint they have for Nightmare doesn't really work, because besides bothering to explain Jason's super teleportation powers and giving him enough instinct to pull a Predator, nothing has really changed from the originals. Jason goes around, and he kills people. Easy peasy.

There's really nothing more that needs to be said. If you haven't seen it, go and watch it. It's pretty good. It's not perfect and certainly has more than enough issues in the dialogue (anyone who uses the word "stupendous" unironically to someone other than schoolchildren deserves to be hacked apart with a machete). It's certainly a hell of a lot better than the two piles of crap that awaits us for the next two weeks of our time in the madhouse of horror remakes.

That's right, it's almost time for the festival of Samhain...

...Halloween approaches...

.,,I just wish it were one of the good ones...

Friday the 13th is now available from New Line Cinemas and Platinum Dunes wherever movies are sold.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Grabbed By The Ghoulies"

Yes, Virginia, there was a time where Rare was not doomed to making shitty Kinect games and...that one game that we shall never speak of again...when they were first acquired by Microsoft.  There was a time when the bright colors, cheerful music, and kooky characters were allowed to make hay, indeed even during the time of the Company that dare not speak its name...and for once, I'm not talking about EA. No, Microsoft, the company that took one of the greatest game development companies of all time and put them to use making things far, far below what their talents were worthy of.  Just before that, however, we have Grabbed by the Ghoulies, the last hurrah of the by-gone age of Rare games that people actually wanted to play.

Is it good? Well, I never played it when it was new, so this was my opportunity to get in and see what was what. Is Grabbed a glorious final battle cry before the world was crushed by the invading armies of darkness, or a last pathetic whimper from Rare as Microsoft dragged it mewling, mutilated corpse away? Let's take a look!

The plot begins with protagonist Cooper and his girlfriend Amber backpacking through the countryside when a storm picks up and they seek shelter at a mansion despite Cooper's insistence that they should press on to the next town.  However, a vampire named Baron von Ghoul overhears Cooper talking smack about his home, calling it "creepy", and decides to teach him a lesson, sending his ghouls to grab Amber. And so it's up to Cooper to brave Ghouly Manor and save his girlfriend.

Immediately a problem for me is the camera angles. This is a 3-D platformer. We need control of the camera in order to function properly, and in a far more fluid manner as well. Giving me the ability to pan around with the left and right triggers helps, but in a combat situation things will be hairy and mistake will be made far, far too easily. Would it not have been better to map the controls for the camera to the right stick of the Xbox control? Like someone who would design a game intuitively for a console might think to do?

And before someone gets in touch to tell me that is totally intuitive game design: No, it isn't!

What's worse is, because of these controls, Cooper is always looking off to the left or the right toward an enemy - even when the enemy has been defeated until they poof away - or object instead of straight ahead where the camera is pointed. This isn't so much an issue since he still controls well enough, but it's an irritation that I just can't look past. No other Rare game I've ever played had this problem.

The right stick does attacking of any sort, though without a weapon Cooper throws some really lame kicks and punches. Of course, the first room was a Billiard Room, so I had Cooper pick himself up a pool cue to whack some skeletons with, and I was having a good time, having a good time. I didn't want to stop at all...until I found that you apparently can't take some items out of rooms, particularly weapons.

That is, of course, besides sections where the oddly very helpful servants in Ghouly Manor give you a weapon of some kind to fight off the various baddies that go bump in the night. These include a flaming torch or a Super Soaker filled with holy water that give a projectile weapon that still has to be aimed using the right stick (and often you'll have to re-aim a few times just to make sure that you're staying on target.

Another big emphasis of the game is a bunch of Jump Scare moments followed by a quick time event. While I appreciate the effort in creating an atmosphere, Jump Scares are incredibly stupid, and so are quick time events. Rare, you didn't have to pull this in your other games to create an atmosphere.  Mad Monster Mansion in Banjo-Kazooie and the on-the-nose named Creepy Castle in Donkey Kong 64 managed to do that pretty well without having to resort to this sort of nonsense.

It's all because of the mechanic where Cooper takes more damage when he's had a fright, but it's really unnecessary, especially when you have so little health to begin with and if the Baron's feeling like a dick (which is often), he'll reduce your health to a certain amount and leave you to squirm. Not that this makes combat difficult, by any stretch, seeing that the camera is the only enemy you will ever actually have a challenge with. And not only that, but if Cooper loses his hearts, it's okay, because he'll just 'port back to the beginning of whatever stage he fell at with virtually no penalty. So basically the only real challenge is in fighting off swarms of enemies. Which isn't actually challenging, it's padding. And cheap.

In a very totally-not-Luigi's Mansion-esque thing, Cooper's hits on foes take away hit points as indicated by a heart hovering over each enemy's head. Once it drops to zero, they get destroyed in a needless dramatic fashion and poof into the dust of nonexistence. Of course, certain enemies can't be taken out in such a manner and have to be dispatched with various implements such as the holy Super Soaker or the torch.

And of course, because it's Rare, we have the kooky and colorful characters. Here, it's most of the serving staff who are definitely in the "quirky" category. Oddly, not so much Cooper. Far from the comedic duo of Banjo and Kazooie, Cooper is a guy trying to be too cool for school...and he's not really doing it well. Still, he's a bad enough dude to rescue his girlfriend from a vampire's lair, so he's at least got roughly the same personality as Charlie Brewster. At the very least he's counterbalanced somewhat by Amber, who has no patience for his nonsense and seeks to keep him in check at virtually every opportunity.

And, of course, because it's Rare, there are the little nods and cameos to other Rare games - such as Banjo-Kazooie and Konker's Bad Fur Day - but unlike in other games (including - admittedly - those in that one that I will never speak of again), all they do is remind me of far better games that I could be playing.  While the aesthetic is admittedly exactly what I expect from Rare, even for a horror game, the only things about this that are the ridiculous and unintuitive camera controls, padding of enemy assaults out to next week, and the rather poorly thought out and implemented Fear mechanic that could have worked, but ultimately doesn't because quick time events are awful and hilariously out of place in  a platformer.

Of course, a great deal of this can be attributed to Rare being purchased by Microsoft, forcing them to adapt the game from what had been a Nintendo Gamecube game into an Xbox game. Sadly yet another thing that Microsoft has done to wreck the good name of Rare, resulting in what is sadly a rather mediocre game. So, no, I won't blame Rare for this one. I'll blame Microsoft.

Up yours, Microsoft!

Grabbed By The Ghoulies is now available from Rare and Microsoft Game Studios for Xbox.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

From MadCap's Couch - "Supernatural: Phantom Traveler"

My eyes! If I had goggles, they'd do nothing!!!

There's...something...on the wing. Some...thing!

Oh, wait, I already did this bit.  Let's move on.

A man at an airport heads into the bathroom and, while washing his face, nervous about his flight to come. Someone should tell him the secret to surviving air travel is to get where you're going, then take off your socks and shoes and walk around on the rug barefoot making fists with your toes. It's so simple! Unfortunately for the man, his trip is about to get far, far less simple when a bunch of black magnetic sand comes out of a nearby vent and forces its way into his body.

I'm going ahead and spoiling it - yes, this is a demon, and yes, it's completely different from what we'll see of a demon outside of a human host later. My thought is that it's still early days and they hadn't rooted down exactly what they'd wanted demons to be later. That or the demon in this episode is just slightly different than the regular black-eyed types.

And indeed this is one as the demon boards a plan. A flight attendant named Amanda notices the black eyes, but just waves this off before the plane takes off. After forty minutes in the air, the passengers who chose fish for dinner all start experiencing a myriad of symptoms, forcing special guest star Leslie Nielsen to...

...oh, sorry, those are the wrong notes.

After forty minutes in the air, the demon gets up and opens the emergency exit at the rear of the planet, causing a crash.

Meanwhile, back at Rat Trap Motel #403, the fangirls get to delight in Dean's ass (covered by order of the censor) before Sam walks in and gets him up. Dean, in turn, berates Sam for not sleeping, which Sam avoids talking about...until Dean asks him if he's still having nightmares about Jess, which he admits that he is, but it's also hunting in general that's eating away at him.

This goes a long way, even for such a short scene, to help establish further character for Sam. Up until this point, he's been avoiding talking about Jess or anything besides searching for their Dad, but since he's still adjusting to the life of hunting again after his two years away trying to live like a normal person. He asks Dean if he's ever afraid, but Dean refutes it...though he is in turn refuted by Sam pulling a bowie knife out from under Dean's pillow.

"That's not a knife...that's a knife..."

He calls it precaution. And then gets a phone call from a man named Jerry Penowski, someone Dean and John helped years ago with a poltergeist. He needs their help again, asking to speak in person. So, Dean and Sam hit the road and he explains the situation. They head into a hangar where the plane from the teaser is being worked on, and Jerry plays the black box recording for Sam and Dean...and there's a cat-like growl on the tape.

They ask to see everything related to the incident, but Jerry can't get them in to see the wreckage. So they decide to go the most logical route and decide to impersonate officials from the Department of Homeland Security.

...oh, like that wouldn't be your first choice for this!

They play back the audio, having filtered and worked out the audio distortions, and hear a voice proclaiming "No survivors!" They theorize that it could be any number of spirits that are known to crop up in lore about traveling. With that, they decide to contact the few survivors of the plane crash from the teaser. They run him through a gamut of the usual suspects for questions, but he says nothing. Dean questions why the man has locked himself in an asylum...and he starts to ramble on about seeing things. With a little coaxing from Sam, the man mentions the man from the teaser...and his black eyes...that he saw open the emergency exit.

They go for George Phelps, the man from the teaser...or, rather, his wife as she explains how much losing her husband has hurt her. Sam and Dean ask if there's anything out of the ordinary, but come up with bupkis.

"They'll never get caught. They're on a mission from God."

They decide to head and check out the wreckage, but not before going to get dressed for the part - putting on suits so the fangirls can swoon with delight. Because, after all, every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man. They pass through and see the wreckage, Dean using a Walkman-based EMF detector as they search. Eventually, they do find EMF and Sam scrapes some unidentified blackened substance off of some debris. Outside, however, the actual team from Homeland Security shows up. Though they mobilize to deal with them, Sam and Dean slip out the back way.

At another airport, one of the pilots from earlier is freaking out, though his friend comforts him...and then he gets attacked by black swirly sand!

Sam and Dean take the bits of debris back to Jerry who examines it under a microscope and determines that it's covered in sulfur. They discuss, and come to the conclusion that it's indeed demonic possession, which is the only way that an ordinary man could have opened the emergency exit on the airplane.

Elsewhere, the demon causes another crash, taking out some power lines.

Back at another motel room, Sam and Dean discuss the nature of demons across various cultures, almost all of them having some kind of lore about demonic possession and the like. Dean mentions how this isn't really their thing, since demons are usually in on their game for death and destruction for its own sake. He also laments that John isn't there, since he might be able to help, which Sam actually agrees with. Jerry calls them to tell them about the latest crash, however, getting them back on the road.

On the debris, they find more sulfur. Sam also works out that both flights went down after they were forty minutes off the ground, 40 having some biblical significance as a number of death. Hitting the internet, Sam has found other planes over the past few years that went down forty minutes in, however there weren't any survivors until the most recent attacks...and now the demon is pursuing the survivors.

They narrow it down to one, Amanda - the flight attendant from the teaser. Though they've attempted to contact her, they have to gun it and arrive with only thirty minutes to spare. They use the courtesy phone to try and contact her, Dean tries to bluff his way through, but she sees through it and he has to improvise...but is unable to keep her from boarding. With no options left, it seems they will have to board the plane to stop the demon...though Dean laments that he's scared to death of flying on planes. However, Sam ends up coaxing him onboard.

"What's your favorite scary movie?"

We get the traditional sitcom clichés of every little thing scaring Dean to death, even him humming some of "Some Kind of Monster" to try and calm himself. Sam tries to coax him to being focused, seeing as they only have just over thirty before the demon strikes. They decide to look for Amanda, to start, Sam mentions to Dean that to get a demon to reveal itself, they need only speak the Latin name of God "Christo" in its presence.

Finding Amanda in the back, Dean tries it out, but she doesn't react, so she's not the demon. Sam thinks he has an exorcism, but first they have to find it. Dean uses his EMF around the plane, but finds nothing. With only fifteen minutes to go, they think it might just not be on the plane...until the co-pilot sets it off. Dean speaks "Christo" to it, and he reveals demonic eyes. With twelve minutes to go, they have to approach Amanda for help. They explain the situation quickly, but she's reluctant...until they coax her and she mentions seeing the demon on the plane before.

Eventually, they convince her to get the co-pilot and bring him to the back of the plane. She pulls it off, bringing him to the back where Dean decks him good and Sam gives him a holy water bath and duct taping his mouth to prevent the demon's escape. Eventually, however, the gag comes off and the demon taunts Sam about Jessica's fate, though Dean decks it again for good measure and Sam begins to exorcise it.

Out of the co-pilot's body, it snakes into the vents again and the plane begins to go down. Fast. Sam manages to retrieve John's journal and completes the exorcism, saving the day. The plane arrives at its destination, or more likely another airport along the way given the stress of the flight, and the authorities come around to ask their routine questions. Amanda mouths a 'thank you' to Sam and Dean, and they take off, though not before Sam freaks out about the demon. Dean tries to comfort him as best he can, and they take off.

Back at Jerry's hangar, he thanks them for everything. Before they leave, Dean asks Jerry how he knew to contact them, since he's only had his cell phone for six months. Jerry reveals that he called John's number, and his voice message told him to contact Dean. Sam and Dean call him up, hearing a message from John, who gives Dean's number via answering machine in spite of Sam saying that they had only found the number to have been disconnected before.  With this, however, they know that their father is alive.

"Sam, I think I can hear the ocean!"

Phantom Traveler is a pretty good episode. It was rather brave for them to use the setting of the airlines for this, especially so soon after the 9/11 attacks. And for those saying it had been four years, it's been fourteeen years at the time that I'm writing this and it's still a very touchy subject in America. It's a very real fear that I think was helped in the transition a great deal by having the enemy be something supernatural instead of being a religious extremist as we know in our reality...though given the nature of demons, as we find out later, this almost becomes ironic.

There's also the addressing of the first exposure we have to demons. Personally, while I joked about it, I like the swirling metallic sand appearance of them outside of their host better than the generic black smoke that we'll be getting for them later on. It honestly makes them feel more like a malignant evil force and corrupted of humanity. There's also more than a few things that never make any real appearance again - such as a demon being stronger outside of its meat suit, the two part exorcism, or lack of emotional control making someone a more appetizing target for demonic possession - but I just chalk that up to being early days, like a lot of things we'll see in the early days that was either changed or completely forgotten about in later episodes.

Overall, not a bad start for demons and some rather grizzly examples of what they can do. Next time, we'll be keeping our feet a little more on the ground with an urban myth that has caused many generations of children to lock themselves in a darkened bathroom and chant three times in the hopes they might see...

Stay tuned!

Supernatural belongs to the CW and Warner Bros.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (2010)

One, two, Freddy's coming for you...

Three, four, better lock your door...

Five, six, grab your crucifix...

Seven, eight, better stay up late...

Nine, ten...never sleep again...

The iconic chant of the creepy little children that somehow always follow Freddy Krueger around. It's just one part of the iconic Nightmare on Elm Street series that has become so beloved by so many. And why? Well, it's most obviously because of the ever-charming personality of the antagonist of the series, Freddy Krueger - for eight films and a television series played by Robert Englund - the bastard son of a hundred maniacs, conceived in a madhouse and eventually growing up to be a child murderer who was burned alive by a bunch of vengeful parents, but came back as a demon to haunt the nightmares of their...teenagers.

...never go for the kill when you can go for the pain, I guess.

But yes, people came to love Freddy in spite of the fact he was a remorseless serial killer.  It's kind of like the same reason if Satan ever comes to conquer humanity, he'll win just by virtue of being pretty and witty. Nevertheless, by the time of Freddy vs. Jason, it became clear that there were really no more directions for the franchise to go.  Enter Michael Bay and Platinum Dunes, who come up with the brilliant idea of resurrecting it through the almighty Reboot.

Given the nature of the man heading up the project and the fact that Robert Englund was - for the first time ever - not going to be Freddy Krueger, it was understandable that certain people were going to be at best a little hesitant about trusting that this remake would be all sunshine and rainbows. And most of the time, they would be entirely right. But this remake did have some things going for it right off the bat, namely that Robert Englund approved of the casting of Jackie Earl Haley as his successor in the role of Freddy, and he is really the only thing that people don't complain about with this film.

But is it all that bad? Does the stench of Michael Bay just cover this film so much? Or is it because  the original is just so beloved that people are offended that Hollywood would even think of a remake. And that's part of the reason I'm here. The Reel Thoughts of Horror Month 2015 are going to cover the remakes of three specific franchises.

That's right, three.  And for the last two films, you damn well better appreciate it, because that movie and its sequel are absolutely brutal on the senses.

But for now, we look into another of the bigger slasher film franchises being done up for the big screen for the first time in seven years. And right off the bat, I can take out the main issue that people seem to have with this film - namely that they remember the sequels to the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, but not the original itself. People remember the jokes, they remember the quips, and Robert Englund did them well...even if they started to get very, very grating after the third movie.

But in the first two movies? Freddy was hardly the snarky joke machine that he became famous for being. Sure, he made an occasional joke or quip if the situation warranted, but he rarely even spoke much less spouted one-liners. He was, y'know...quiet...menacing...

Rather like he is in this movie.  How 'bout that?!

Even looking into the second movie (y'know, that one that nobody likes for reasons I will never understand), the guy was frightening as all get out and arguably even more so than the first movie seeing as he spent the entire run time of the film - driving a person insane as he possessed him!  But no, nobody likes to remember that Freddy, they like to remember the wise-cracking jackass who kills people off with the snappy one-liners and puns.

They don't want to acknowledge that their beloved Freddy Krueger is, in fact a deranged psychopath who kills - largely children, no less - without any hint of remorse. And I am giving Robert Englund his due credit here, the man is a masterstroke and deserves a lot, lot better than to be stuck for the rest of his life tied to the persona of an insane burn victim in a terrible Christmas sweater. The fact is that the character of Freddy Krueger is not relatable, not likeable, and so not be treated as either of those things. He's evil.

So yeah, you can imagine I really don't get the fanboy rage that gets built up over the "accurate" portrayal of Freddy versus how he's done in this movie, when this is the most like Freddy he's been since the original and arguably New Nightmare.  And before someone says that I'm just bashing Freddy, I put the same complaints to those who try to insist Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, or even Pinhead and others are relatable.

You're idiots. Every last one of you.

Getting to the plot, however, we pick up with Nancy Holbrook (Rooney Mara) picking up the investigation into a mysterious man with a creepy claw, fedora, and a red and green sweater after the death of her best friend Kris (Katie Cassidy) and...

...oh, you're wondering why I basically skipped over the first half hour or so of the film and spoiled one of the first major deaths? Because they did the same thing in the original and nobody should really be all that surprised. Though due credit to Katie Cassidy, she's at least somewhat likeable as a decoy protagonist and actually does manage to last longer than her counterpart in the original.

Nevertheless, Nancy and her not-Johnny Depp boyfriend Quentin (Kyle Gallner) begin to dig into things as Freddy begins to pile up the bodies. Eventually, the truth comes out - all the murder victims attended the same preschool together, where Freddy was a gardener and sexual abused the children...or, at least, that's what the parents say. There's actually some question as to whether or not the parents' allegations are true, but like the death of Freddy in the original films, they burned him to death just the same.

This time instead, however, it seems that Freddy wants revenge on the kids for lying, not the parents for burning him to death. Honestly, I thought this was a very interesting twist on the entire concept. A new angle to approach it from that, perhaps, Freddy could actually be a sympathetic character. Of course, he isn't and I knew he ultimately wasn't going to be, but the fact that the production team even thought of putting that in shows some actual thought, which is pretty damn rare for a remake all things considered. They could have just done a paint by the numbers full on Nightmare film and they chose to actually try something a little different. Kudos.

There's also people who take issue with Freddy being changed in this version from a child murderer into a child molester.  I don't. The fact is this - Freddy Krueger is a deranged, murderous, psychopath. He was that was in the originals, he's that way here, and it's amazing that people seem to think that a man who was burned to death and kills people in their dreams for the hell of it has anything remotely resembling standards. I know why, of course. It's because - as I said before - people have fallen in love with the representations of Freddy in the sequels where he's all witty an charming, rather than the original. The joker and pun-maker who kills rather than the former child killer who kills.

I'd say it's like the mindless devotion that Batman gets, but at least that can have an argument made for it: Batman's ultimately (for the most part) heroic...if he's not being written by Frank Miller. People who are screaming "Betrayal!" at the portrayal of Freddy in this movie, saying it's nothing like the original, are trying to defend the "good name" of a deranged psychopath.

Let that sink in for a minute.

It actually brings to mind A New Nightmare (probably the best entry in the series outside of the original), where Wes Craven's entire argument in the film was that Freddy had become too saturated and dummied out by the passage of time and the sequels. He'd gotten away from being scary. But then I seem to be one of the select few who saw the film, got the point, and actually appreciated it rather than just clamoring to see Freddy vs. Jason (which I think is the only film that pissed off fans of Freddy more than this one), so what the hell do I know?

Oh, and by the way, Wes Craven's original idea was to have Freddy be a child molester, but New Line said no at the time. So much for your complaint about it not being in the original depiction.

The film, from the beginning of Nancy picking up the investigation, pretty much follows the same formula as the original Nightmare. complete with the twist ending that Freddy's not really dead because of course every horror film has to have a twist ending.

Also, for the record on that last kill, daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayum Freddy!

Where I will give the film grief in the use of CGI where it isn't needed. Faithful recreations of scenes from the original - such as the Freddy stretching out the wall scene - are nice, but ultimately could have been done with practical effects and were done far, far better in the original. Same goes for some of the dream landscapes. In the original, Wes Craven deliberately set up everything besides the boiler room itself - the sanctum of Freddy's power - to make the viewer confused as to whether what they were watching was real or in a dream.

Here, almost all the shifts are so abrupt and blatantly obvious, such as when Kris is confronted with Freddy and he gets his first spoken dialogue. Yes, Fallout-chic looks frightening but unless Freddy's going to be killing people with conjured Deathclaws, it's really rather pointless for a scene that lasts less than three minutes. I don't mind it, but it's really just unnecessary.

The acting is also a little mixed. Perhaps it's just my personal view, but I did not find Rooney Mara to be a good replacement for Heather Langenkamp as Nancy. Perhaps it's because she doesn't have the intrinsic likability of her sister Kate, or perhaps it's because she plays the role as being rather detached and barely awake (Ha!). Then again, they were going with the bizarre arty goth girl angle that would have made this film a hit in 2003, so what do I know?

The rest of the cast fares no better, either being marginalized or likewise fighting off sleep while on camera. Especially Clancy Brown being in the film as one of the parents. I don't know about you, but I wanted to see the Kurgan fight Freddy Krueger, damn it! Awesome movie idea is awesome!

But really, I find that the hate for this film is unnecessary - whether it's because you hate Michael Bay (who, from what I've read, had little to do with either this or the Friday remake besides greenlighting it and throwing in some money for it) or you hate that your precious image of a deranged, psychopath maniac was ruined forever - and I'd suggest trying to come back to it with an open mind. It certainly has its flaws, but it was a good effort, if a little overdone and underdone in some aspects.

And you could do a lot worse as far as remakes go...and we'll be getting into that in a few weeks...

A Nightmare on Elm Street is now available from New Line Cinemas and Platinum Dunes.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Dead Space"

Alright, it's time to kick off Horror Month 2015! And we're kicking it off with an actual good game this year - Dead Space.  Yes, the original tale of Issac Clarke and the Ishimura, leading into an awesome sequel and a big, steaming pile. But for now we can focus on the original and what made it so great.

...no, not the Zero-G sequences.

...no, not the hallway tentacle rape sequences.

...no, not the lack of a jetpack.

Okay, I'm going off on a tangent here.  The plot begins in the 26th century with Issac Clarke, a systems engineer of the USG Kellion going on a totally routine mission with his crew to investigate the distress signals of the USG Poseidon...err, I mean Ishimura. Also aboard is Issac's girlfriend Nicole, who Issac hasn't seen in roughly two years and is all too happy to see again...never mind how she and the rest of the crew have come up with a nasty case of space zombie madness.

Yes, all jokes aside, the crew of the Ishimura has apparently been subjected to a Voyage of the Damned meets Dawn of the Dead scenario and it's up to Issac and the few survivors from the Kellion to get aboard, figure out what happened, and Issac using all sorts of tasty bits of weaponry - both actual and improvised - to get through and hopefully save the universe from a similarly space zombie fate. And all in all, it's a pretty fun game that has a lot of atmosphere - ironic given the name.

Instead of just going with the usual armaments of a space marine, Issac only gets the some tools of the trade of engineering. After all, everyone remembers that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Geordi used a gun that shoots razor blades to repair a transwarp conduit, am I right? Beyond that awesome weapon, Issac also gets his hands on a force gun (shotgun), line gun (mine shooter), and a flamethrower (...no, that one's exactly what it says on the tin) along with other tasty bits of heavy ordinance such as your standard pulse rifle.

Mind you, it makes sense, since Issac isn't a trained mercenary commando. He's an engineer thrown into a crazy situation and has to get out using his wits and sheer dumb luck, not unlike another protagonist in another game with man-eating space aliens.

Actually, if there's anything that Dead Space does remind me of, it's the Alien franchise, particularly the first film. An unknown, terrifying menace who seeks the complete and utter destruction of all humans simply because of a basic, primal need. Not out of some maliciousness towards its prey. The creatures are survivors... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality. The Necromorphs have no desire for anything other than to eat people and create more of their kind, called by the siren's song of the Marker.

And that's what really helps to make them more terrifying, and makes Issac's ultimate triumph in the end all the better. After so much curbstomping (Issac's melee on fallen enemies, it's probably the most memorable thing about this game), Issac finally does manage to escape from the smoking remains he's created and away as the last of the Necromorphs are burned away, and he's safe at last...

...or is he? Well, we know from Dead Space 2 that Issac's life does not become all ice cream and strippers.

As it happens, I actually prefer Issac in this game than I do in the latter two. Even though I do like his story from the second game, and I even like his voice actor when he comes in, it's far easier to project onto him in this one due to having little personality outside of the player's headcanons and decisions. Which I would mock other games for doing, but here it works due to Issac being a silent protagonist in the events.

One of the biggest problems I had with this game, and one of the problems I had with Dead Space 2 is the shops. I am running for my life from Lovecraftian beasts in space, why in the name of God am I remotely worried about paying fair prices for anything? Why don't I just use my elite engineering skills and make the machines just give me whatever I want, instead seeing to it that the machines only have a limited supply? In a game like this, why is there even a monetary system? This really should have been thought out more.

On the whole, however, I really like this game and I feel way more invested in it than I am when I play either of its sequels (not that I have or ever will play 3 any more). While I do enjoy the over the top hilarity of Dead Space 2, this one really hits the high notes in horror, at least for me. Scary enough to scratch that outer space horror itch, and in a way that doesn't give Randy Pitchford money. What more could you ask for?

Dead Space is now available from Visceral Games and Electronic Arts for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.