Bookmonkey vs The Hoard: Post Three - Revival

I've been a fan of Tim Seeley's work since i first checked out his horror movie-themed series Hack/Slash in 2011 and after spending a month in 2013 reading my way through that entire title, I began collecting his latest series, a Rural Noir called Revival, written by Seeley, and illustrated by Mike Norton. As often happens with collections, I ended up with five of these before I got around to reading any past the first volume, and that brings us up-to-date.

This week, I went through the first five collections and this series is pretty darn great. Having been a long-time fan of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead (whether in original comic, adapted television show, or even video game form), I wasn't exactly sure if I wanted to start another comic about the dead rising, but Revival is something entirely different.

Taking place in a fictionalized version of Seeley's hometown of Wausau Wisconsin, the story focuses on police officer Dana Cypress and the events set after "Revival Day", when the dead rose in the area surrounding the town, not as zombies, but apparently as themselves, and (mostly) wanting to get on with the business of living. The series works as a mystery, both on the large scale, as no one know why this specific geographical area has been effected, and on the small scale, involving murders, kidnappings and the types of crimes than can happen in a small town cut off from the rest of the world (Wausau is quickly put under quarantine by the United States Government).

Although the series does have a large number of truly gruesome scenes, much of the story is driven by family drama, Dana works with her father (the town's Sheriff), has a younger sister in college, and an eight-year-old son, each of which has their own secrets and story lines.

A really great series, and one I'm quite happy to have finally gotten around to reading!

Movie Review: Oblivion

For my last post before switching over to my month of examining Hack/Slash I thought I would talk about a pretty great movie I saw over the weekend; Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion.

Adapted from an unpublished graphic novel (once the film was picked up, the publication date for the graphic novel was moved to coincide with the release of the film), Oblivion, starring Tom Cruise was a pretty amazing looking film.

As a story, I ran into the issue that I've read a lot of science fiction over the years and was pretty confident as I went through the film what all of the major plot points and twists would be - I still enjoyed the movie, but it was for other reasons.

First of all, the film is staggering in how good it looks - the sets (specifically the house in the clouds the two main characters live in) was simply amazing to look at - I'm used to spotting computer-gernated effects in films and there really didn't seem to be a lot as far as the sets were concerned.  Secondly, the score, by M83 was just great - I haven't purchased a lot of scores in the last few years, but I have to admit I was pretty tempted here.  I felt the acting was pretty great - I just sort of wish the story had a bit more of a wow factor for me - which again, may just be a jaded science fiction fan's response.

Definitely worth checking out.

Movie Review: R.I.P.D.

So last night my wife and I went out to see an advanced screening of the new film R.I.P.D., starring Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges.

First of all, yes - the film can largely be described as Men In Black, but with Supernatural, rather than Extra-Terrestrial beings in it.

Aside from that, however, the film was a whole lot of fun, had a really great sense of humour and had just about the perfect balance between horror and comedy.  I'm pretty sure both my kids will really enjoy it, and although I didn't really see the 3D as necessary, I don't think it drastically took away from the film either.

The film follows a recently deceased boston cop (Reynolds) who finds that he has been recruited into the Rest In Peace Department (RIPD), meaning it is now his job to return the unquiet dead back to where they belong when they escape to Earth.

Yes, a lot of the elements in the film were covered in the Television series Dead Like Me (which, if you haven't seen it is pretty amazing, by the way) and the short-lived Television series Brimstone (which actually used an awful lot of the same concepts).

In the end, the writing is sharp, the visuals are fun, and as it's based on a graphic novel from Dark Horse Comics (producers of my personal favourite series, Hellboy) so I'd say it is definitely worth the watch.