And die, they do. This episode boasts some of the most hard-hitting, numerous deaths there have ever been.
The episode opens with Lafayette and Jesus having breakfast. Lafayette is acting strange and Jesus doesn’t figure it out until the moment he says Lafayette’s name and Lafayette shakes his head no, plunging a pen into Jesus’ hand and making him scream out.
Sookie talks to Tara about whether Gran is in heaven or not. This will come into play later in the episode.
We see Sam at his brother’s grave, mourning in private. Maxine shows up and provides a bit of comfort. Sookie goes to Merlotte’s and sees Arlene. Sookie asks where Sam is and can hear Arlene thinking about how no one has told her. Sookie finds Sam in his office and gives her condolences about Tommy. Sam learns about the moment that Tommy fired Sookie when he was skinwalking. Sam tries to play it off, saying he wasn’t himself that day. Sookie is rehired.
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Jason goes to see Hoyt at a job site and confesses that he slept with Jessica. Hoyt is furious and beats the living hell out of Jason.
Jesus is tied up by Lafayette and Marnie demands to have Jesus’ power. Jesus concedes as long as Marnie doesn’t hurt Lafayette. Lafayette stabs Jesus in the chest, taking Jesus’ demon into his body. Jesus whispers that he is sorry to Lafayette, as he knows that when this is over, Lafayette will have to live with the demon power in the future.
Tara drops by and finds Jesus’ dead body. I feel so bad for Lafayette at this point. He really deserves a happier story than all the sadness and destruction that falls around him. Now he’s lost his boyfriend because a spirit made him kill him.
Alcide drops by Merlotte’s and confesses his love to Sookie. He pleads with her to choose him. He explains that he is no longer with Debbie because Sookie was right about her.
Meanwhile, a stranger walks in who turns out to Marine Sergeant Patrick Devins that served with Terry. Patrick and Terry catch up and Terry introduces Arlene. Later in the episode, Arlene is visited by Rene’s spirit who warns her that Terry’s past is dark and will catch up to them soon.
Holly and Sookie discuss how they’ve felt nervous all day just as Tara drives up and says that Marnie is inside Lafayette. The three go to Bill’s place where Bill and Eric are chained up and about to be burned at the stake. Lafayette says that “what goes around comes around.”
Holly, Tara, and Sookie cast a spell that makes all the spirits of the deceased in the cemetery rise up and help them. Antonia blows out the fire and says she has come to take Marnie home. Gran shows up as well and helps them save Bon Temps. Gran pulls Marnie from Lafayette and takes her spirit away.
Jessica shows up at Jason’s and learns of his beating by Hoyt. The two are not too discouraged and make some clear friends with benefits boundaries. Jessica isn’t ready to get serious yet. After Jessica leaves, there’s a knock on the door. Jason opens the door to see vampire Reverend Newlin there, fangs exposed.
Tara tries to help Lafayette understand that it wasn’t him that killed Jesus, but Lafayette is hurting. We can see it. In the middle of the night, Jesus’ spirit appears to Lafayette. Jesus tells him it wasn’t his fault and that he will always be with him, as he’s a medium. This seems to comfort Lafayette as much as it can.
Both Eric and Bill feed on Sookie to heal. She explains to both of them that she cannot choose between them and breaks up with both of them.
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We see Sam and Luna having an intimate kiss on his porch. When Luna leaves, Sam turns to see a snarling wolf. Uh oh.
One of Alcide’s employees calls him to a job site. Alcide figures out that the employee has been glamoured. There is displaced concrete with loose chains inside of it. Is this the return of Russell?
Nan arrives at Bill’s house where she, Bill, and Eric discuss how she was fired from the AVL and the Authority and how she wants to rebel against them. She reveals that there are bounties on all three of their heads. Nan calls Eric and Bill Sookie’s puppy dogs and they stake her.
Sookie returns home and calls out for Tara. Sookie turns around and comes face to face with Debbie pointing a shotgun at her. Just as Debbie pulls the trigger, Tara jumps in front of Sookie. The shot seems to strike Tara’s head. Sookie wrestles the gun from Debbie and shoots her in the head.
Sookie sits with a very limp, bleeding Tara in her lap and screams for help.
How will Jason deal with vampire Newlin?
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Will Sam have to answer the wolf community for Marcus’ death?
Will Lafayette be able to heal from the trauma of killing Jesus?
Is Russell going to kill some of our favorite characters upon his return?
Will there be consequences for Nan’s death? What about the bounty on Eric and Bill’s heads?
How will Alcide feel when he finds out about Debbie’s death?
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Is Tara truly gone? How will Sookie deal with this?
This episode gave us explosive deaths at an unparalleled level. RIP Jesus, Nan, Debbie, and Tara.
Sarah Moon is a stone-cold sorceress from Tennessee whose interests include serial killers, horror fiction, and the newest dystopian blockbuster. Sarah holds an M.A. in English Literature and an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing. She works as an English professor as well as a cemeterian. Sarah is most likely to cover horror in print including prose, poetry, and graphic forms. You can find her on Instagram @crystalsnovelnook.
Leonardo Dicaprio’s films rarely disappoint. It was interesting to see him flex different acting muscles in this psychological thrillerShutter Island alongside Mark Ruffalo and Michelle Williams. When I say that I was not expecting such a turn in the story, I mean that my jaw was pretty much on the floor the entire time. Without any further ado, let’s dive into its mastery, shall we?
A cliché setup done right
We have been here before a million times. A character stumbles into a scene to solve a mystery. Everyone is acting just the right amount of suspicion to make you wonder. Dicaprio’s Edward ‘Teddy’ travels to an extremely remote island where a woman goes missing from a psychiatric institution. He’s experiencing migraines and flashbacks to his murdered wife while receiving little to no help from the hospital staff.
Teddy soon suspects that the hospital is experimenting on patients which fuels his theories on what happened to the missing woman. Things take even more of a turn when his partner also disappears. Unsurprisingly, everyone insists Teddy came to the island alone. Feeling like he’s losing his mind, our protagonist finds out that this is exactly the case. He is a patient in the hospital and the entire investigation is an attempt to get him to understand the truth.
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While the whole ‘it was all in your head’ trope has a bad rep for the fans of any genre, this film uses it masterfully. Watching it for the first time not knowing what to expect is obviously a shock and then watching it again, looking at all the clues that were the which you missed – that’s a treat on its own. After all, there’s nothing inherently wrong with using cliches if they are done the right way.
Things that go bump in our minds
A huge part of this movie’s storyline is Andrew’s inability to process the truth. The roots for it stretch far beyond the plot twist. Andrew is unable to acknowledge that his wife is mentally ill and believes that moving them to the countryside will fix everything. After she murders their children, he is further pushed into the world of delusion, convincing himself to be a hero because he couldn’t save his own family.
It’s interesting to note that in his delusion, Andrew is the one who set fire to their house. Is this a little sliver of his mind whispering the truth to him? Is it his subconscious villainizing himself out of contempt, searching for answers that are never going to come? Andrew’s psychiatrist pointed out that his moment of clarity has happened before, only to be undone quite quickly. Perhaps it was easier for Andrew to shut it off rather than live with the knowledge that he could’ve done something to prevent a terrible tragedy.
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Overall thoughts
Shutter Island is a movie that provides both the entertainment value you would expect from a suspense thriller and a deeper layer of thought. Coated with a perfect atmosphere and amazing acting, it’s a piece that will definitely hold the test of time.
(4.5 / 5)
We’ve reached episode four of Wheel of Time, which means we’re halfway through the season. While it doesn’t seem like much has happened so far, this is the episode where things start heating up.
The Story
We begin this episode with a flashback. Ishamael is raising something dark and twisted. As we watch, it takes the shape of a woman.
More on that in a bit.
Meanwhile, Nynaeve is healing from her time in the arches. She is quiet and withdrawn. She’s also awkward and uncomfortable around Egwene now that she’s initiated and Egwene is not. Her new friendship with Elayne isn’t helping.
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But the three girls come together when Liandrin tells Nynaeve that Perrin has been captured by the Seanchan.
However, Perrin is no longer in the clutches of the Seanchan. He was rescued by Elyas and a pack of beautiful wolves. Beautiful and deadly AF by the way. If you have any fear of dogs, this episode might not help that.
Elyas explains to Perrin that he is a Wolf Brother. This means that he can communicate with the wolves, and eventually will gain some of their abilities. While Perrin and Elyas don’t exactly get off on the right foot, he does find a fast friendship with one specific wolf. After a time, he introduces himself by showing Perrin an image of himself jumping up and down. From this, Perrin assumes his name is Hopper.
Finally, we return to Rand. He and Selene have been off in the mountains. They haven’t done much more than each other so far.
And that’s exactly what it appears they’re about to do when Moiraine bursts into the cottage and cuts Selene’s throat.
Rand is surprised and furious until Moiraine explains that the woman he knows as Selene is the Dark Friend Lanfear. With this shocking revelation, the two run off into the night.
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What worked
It should be a surprise to no one that I loved the wolves in this episode. Hopper himself was worth an extra Cthulhu. But this is not just because dogs are cute. It’s also because the dog playing Hopper just does a great job.
On a more serious note, I loved how Nynaeve responded upon coming back to the real world. She isn’t okay.
And it’s a good thing that she isn’t. Too often in fiction we don’t see the fallout of emotional damage. Hell, we don’t usually see realistic fallout from physical damage.
But she is hurt by what she experienced. And you can tell. That’s realistic character building, and we don’t see that enough.
I also really appreciate the special effects in this episode. The first time we see Lanfear, she’s eerie. She’s frightening. Part of this is thanks to Natasha O’Keeffe, who does a great job. But the effects are what really sells this.
What didn’t work
If Wheel of Time has any fault, it’s that there is far too much sitting about and talking about things. In this case, there’s a lot of standing about and talking about things. Some of this was necessary, and some of it could have been done better. Honestly, there just has to be a better way to convey that characters are struggling.
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This was most apparent with Rand and Selene/Lanfear. Honestly, anytime the two of them were on screen it was a great time for me to catch up on Instagram.
This might come as a surprise to anyone who hasn’t read the books, but Rand is supposed to be the main character. And here we are, four episodes into an eight-episode season, and so far all he’s done is mess about with his emo girlfriend!
That being said, the story is starting to pick up. With four episodes left, I can’t wait to see how far we go.
Elevator Game (2023) is directed by Rebekah McKendry and is the first feature-length production of Fearworks. It adapts the supernatural myth and creepypasta of the same name while providing an original plot. This unrated Shudder exclusive stars Gino Anania, Samantha Halas, and Verity Marks. In full disclosure, I had the opportunity to interview Gino Anania and Stefan Brunner about the film.
Ryan seeks to find answers to his sister’s mysterious disappearance. To do this, he infiltrates a myth-busting web series that seems to have some ties to her final confirmed moments. Desperate to force a confrontation, he encourages them to play the elevator game. Unfortunately, there seems to be more truth to the myth than expected.
ELEVATOR GAME’s Samantha Halas as the 5th Floor Woman
What I Like about Elevator Game & as an Adaptation
I am lucky to have additional insight into the development hell this movie overcame due to COVID. It’s commendable that the film manages to make it of that, even if it requires a lengthy delay of the film.
Usually, I provide a separate section for adaptation quality. However, the source material remains the ritual, which Elevator Game performs accurately. While the myth inspires many creepypastas, Elevator Game doesn’t directly take or adapt any of these works from what I’ve seen. Instead, it makes its own film based on the legend.
As the Fifth Floor Woman, Samantha Halas creates an eerie and disturbing character. While I won’t go so far as to say terrifying, she certainly makes an impression. The revelation that the stunts and performance are all her, as an actual contortionist, I give her more credit.
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Gino Anania, given a more complex role than most of his cast members, really does bring a strong performance that creates either friction or synergy with his cast members. I suppose I wanted more of these interactions as some cut sooner than appreciated.
Another amusing element is that the entire motivation for the plot to follow is a forced advertisement from an investor. Something about the chaos being a product of appeasing some investors feels uncomfortably real.
The alternate reality remains surprisingly effective. To be clear, it’s not impressively realistic but stylistic. It genuinely seems like an alternate world with a skewered impression.
Disclaimer Kimberley Web Design
Tired Tropes or Trigger Warning
I feel weird mentioning this, but endangering a sister’s life to push the brother’s story forward seems a common trend beyond one form of media.
No discredit to the actors, but the romance feels rushed and unnecessary. Without going into too much detail, to avoid spoilers, there is synergy between the actors but little chemistry in the plot.
ELEVATOR GAME – Verity Marks as Chloe Young and Gino Anania as Ryan Keaton
What I Dislike or Considerations
Elevator Game remains set in providing a B-movie experience. Its tight budget leaves little room to surprise the viewer visually. While I am surprised at what it accomplishes, it’s far from overwhelming. This film also remains the first production of Fearworks, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. I’m interested in the future, but Elevator Game leaves much to grow from.
Rebekah McKendry may have a directorial style that influences dialogue, but the line delivery evokes an overexpression that’s common in Lovecraftian films. I say this not as a direct negative, but it remains a required taste best known before viewing. As this isn’t Lovecraftian, I fear it removes some of the reality and tension of those haunting elements.
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Many of the characters feel underdeveloped, making me wonder if cutting these roles might lead to more invested characters. While the performances hit their marks, a tighter cast might give each role more to work toward. As this is a tight cast already, it seems an odd issue to rectify.
Final Thoughts
Elevator Game provides an interesting B-movie experience for those who know the legend. For those expecting something different, this film may not work for you. This film overcame a lot to exist but doesn’t break the mold. While I am excited to see Fearworks pursue further ventures toward its ambitious mission statement, I find Elevator Game falling short of its goal. (2 / 5)
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