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Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus And That Emotionally Traumatic Intro

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Wolfenstein

I dove in head first into the Nazi slaughtering action that is Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. I took the dive expecting tons of gory over the top action, tons of badass weapons and… well, lots of Nazi killin’. And while that is exactly what is waiting to greet you, there is also an unexpected one-two punch of some extremely emotionally unsettling stuff.

The action picks up right where Wolfenstein: The New Order left off. William “B.J.” Blazkowicz is left severely injured and in a 5-month coma following his explosive interaction with Deathshead. During his time in the coma, B.J.’s consciousness drifts on the cusp of waking, memories and nightmares.

During this portion of the game, there are plenty of hellish things to see. Things like, seeing firsthand as portions of your intestine are removed, or having to relive tough choices from the first game. What is most interesting here though is an unexpected flashback to Blazkowicz’s traumatic childhood.

This flashback takes you all the way back to little Blazkowicz’s and his black-eye wearing mom, who is feeding the sick child soup at his bedside. When his abusive father comes home, his mom rushes to hide the petrified kiddo in a nearby dresser with along with his trusty pup. Blazkowicz watches and listens to his mom attempt to shield him from his hulking bully of a father. Eventually, and tired of waiting, his father gives his mom a haymaker knocking her out of the way and to the ground. All the tension causes the pup to come to his mother’s defense. The hulking bully, tosses the pup across the room and continues to boots the poor dog in its side before coming after young Blazkowicz. As he strangles him, he tells him that the world is tough and that the weak don’t make it. He chokes him into blackout before dragging him downstairs and strapping his wrists down to a board. All of this is already extremely difficult to watch but what came next really took the cake.

His abusive father comes in and ties the pup in a dark corner of the room nearby. He then loads a shotgun and places the double barrel in your hands. The way that young Blazkowicz wrists are strapped down doesn’t allow for much in the way of aiming. His father screams at young Blazkowicz ordering him to pull the trigger in the direction of the unsuspecting pup.

The game hands control off to you and gives you the tough job of shooting the poor dog. Nice, right? I waited for a while to see if the choice would somehow be made for me, or if I could maybe shoot that asshole instead. The game is patient it waits with you. After a while, I chose to aim off to the side and pull the trigger, I’m a dog lover and was totally unable to kill a dog even in game. You are only given a split-second before the asshole takes the shotgun from your hands and blows the dogs brains out himself.

This is severe. It’s intense. It made my stomach turn. Making you spectate is one thing, but this game goes straight for the throat in terms of getting you emotionally invested early on. I mean all this is within the first few moments of gameplay.Watching his mother beaten, hearing a combo loco of racial slurs and watching his poor dog blasted to bits puts a fire in your belly, blasting Nazi’s feels like therapy afterwards. From that point on you become one with ole’ Psycho Billy, and it feels great.

We will have our full review up soon, but wanted to share that chilling and grounded moment.  It shook us up a bit. This game doesn’t seem to give a crap about feelings and we are 100% ready for the full blood soaked ride this game is going to take us on.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is out now on Playstation 4, Xbox One and Windows.

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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