Today’s my 33rd birthday. Yes, I am aware that I’m past retirement age by Internet standards. I’m awaiting the stone in my hand to start flashing to carry me away to the after-world of Facebook any moment now.
Format Shift: The Reinvention of Shane Dawson
It’s weird how quickly a cliche can develop. I feel like every piece of criticism responding to Shane Dawson’s new multi-part documentary format on YouTube starts with a bunch of disclaimers. The author (meaning writer, vlogger, podcaster, etc.) comments on how they hated or didn’t really know Shane Dawson. They say it’s surprising that he’s doing something so serious with his channel. They’re happy for his success, but they question what’s really motivating him.
In all honesty, I can see how this is true for a lot of authors. Online content, especially videos, is a young person’s game. I’m young by normal standards, but ancient by Internet standards: 32, turning 33 tomorrow. I’m old enough to remember when YouTube was a new platform; I’m also old enough to remember cassette overtaking vinyl and mall tours being a huge deal.
Haunters: The Art of the Scare Review (Film, 2017)
Haunters: The Art of the Scare is about my people. This is a documentary from director Jon Schnitzer about home haunts and the haunted house industry. If you’re not familiar, a home haunt is an elaborate series of yard and/or home decorations designed to recreate the experience of a Halloween haunted house at home. We put up these displays for anyone to walk through, usually free of charge, and do it because we love Halloween, horror, haunted houses, and being scared. I spend a couple hundred dollars a year building a new haunt from the ground up; the people featured in this documentary spend a lot more. For some (like me), it’s a hobby; for others, it’s an attempt to prove their skills and move up to working professionally in the industry.
Happy Death Day Review (Film, 2017)
Happy Death Day is the mashup of a slasher film and Groundhog’s Day. A sorority girl is forced to keep living the same day over and over again. It’s her birthday, and by the end of the night, she will be murdered. She can avoid the original crime scene, but death will follow her to take her and life will send her back to the same stranger’s dorm room she woke up in that morning. That’s the entire concept. The survivor girl is the first victim, the hero, the antihero, and all the 80s slasher stock characters rolled up in one.
Dead by Daylight Chapter IX: Shattered Bloodline Review (Game DLC, 2018)
Behaviour Interactive, the developers of asymmetrical 4v1 survival horror game Dead by Daylight, have been working very hard to meet their stated timeline of a new chapter (DLC release) every quarter. This is a pretty grueling timeline for a comparatively small studio, especially since the game needs to update on PC, XBox One, and PS4. Every step back (like the Playstation store rejecting the Chapter VIII DLC for weeks after the PC and XBox launches) makes them work harder to prove that their fans deserve their trust. Each update always brings fixes, even if some of those fixes might throw something else out of whack.
A quick recap for those who might be unfamiliar with Dead by Daylight. This game pits a team of four survivors against one killer in a survival horror match. The survivors have to power five generators, unlock one of two exit gates, and escape before being killed. The killer has to track, attack, and hook the survivors to sacrifice them before they all escape. You earn bloodpoints for everything you do in the game and use those points to level up your character, adding new perks (special abilities), items, and offerings that impact how each match is played.