Author: Tim Gaydos

Santa, Wow. What a year. Can you believe it? I’m the president! The ultimate winner! Are you jealous? It’s okay, I know you are and I don’t blame you. I’m very much the greatest. Anyway, you’re probably wondering, with how great I am and, by the way, all the winning I’m doing, what else could I possibly want for Christmas? It’s a good question, really good question. People have been asking it. And while it’s true I already have a lot, and I mean a LOT, of things already because I am very rich, there are still some things I…

Last weekend, we were treated to the spectacle of Mike Pence and the Theater Community. In case you missed it, Pence went to see the hit musical and soon-to-be-its-own-sentient-entity Hamilton. The audience then actively booed him. Considering this is a man who not only thinks you should be allowed to refuse the LGBT community service in your business, but that it’s totally cool to electrocute them until they are straighter than a strand of Trump’s fake hair, this was probably the best kind of welcome he could hope to expect. The cast of Hamilton understandably felt the situation should be…

Effective horror has to have some element of feeling real. That’s why The Blair Witch Project became such a phenomenon, why so many ghost and possession movies claim to be “based on actual events,” and why you never ever CGI blood. Give us something too outlandish, like serial-killing snowmen, and the fear dissipates. For me personally, it’s the reason why I find movies like The Strangers much more frightening than, say, Poltergeist. The former is grounded in something that so closely resembles our actual reality, and the characters are antagonized by people who can very easily exist, that it cranks the…

Last year I wrote about ways the found footage genre of horror films could improve itself, because even though those movies are really easy to mock I love them and want to see them succeed. One of my suggestions had to do with making the antagonistic presence an actual character and not just a largely unseen purveyor of jump scares. The latter can absolutely work, but when it’s almost exclusively what these kinds of movies gravitate towards, it gets boring. Right after that article got posted, I saw two found footage movies that took that suggestion to heart. The first…

A couple years ago I had some fun watching whatever schlock Netflix recommended I watch for Halloween. The fact that it was fun is exactly why horror is probably my favorite genre. It’s the only genre where I can get just as much enjoyment out of the bad examples as I do the good. There is a thin line between horror and comedy, so when someone misunderstands what makes something scary the result can be immensely gratifying. But that was then. This year I want to take a different tact to celebrate my favorite season and call attention to some…

My new roommate is the worst. How am I going to survive this school year? Dealing with an annoying roommate can be rough. But it’s important to remember that he is another human being dealing with his own issues that you may not be aware of. You mean I need to work on empathizing with him? Oh heavens no. You need to learn what those issues are and exploit them. Wait, what? Example: Perhaps he comes from a troubled household and his parents suffered from drug addiction. You could make a point to display photos of you and your family on vacation…

Muhammad Ali passed away Friday at the age of 74. Ali was widely considered the greatest boxer of all time, and was known for his ability to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, which was due to a rare genetic mutation that also gave him the ability to shed like a Corgi and piss like a race horse. Scientists have yet to recreate the conditions that led to Ali. Mike Tyson represents the closest they have come; however, Tyson was only able to bite like a hyena.

When I was a kid, going to the zoo felt like a big exciting adventure with unlimited things to explore and see. Then one summer when I was a little older, I realized all those exciting adventures were actually pre-planned trails, and I was certainly never going to get the opportunity to befriend the wolves and fight crime as the Wolf Pack. I recently had such a revelation about something truly important: video games. This Earth-shattering moment of clarity came about over the past month, as I finally started Bloodborne. Yeah, I know, I’m a year late to the party. But…

We’re hitting the home stretch of the primary season, which means we’re maybe halfway through this election cycle. Just seven more months to go! While I don’t know who is going to win either party’s nomination, I do know we still have lot of bullshit to get through before this whole mess is over. Bullshit that we’d all rather not deal with. But there’s a solution! The same solution I use for all the things I don’t want to deal with: unnecessary amounts of alcohol. And so I present to you the 2016 Primary Election Clusterfuck and Alcohol Fun Time…

In just a couple days, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Warner Bros and DC Pretending They Are Marvel will grace cinemas with groundbreaking CGI scowl matches between grumpy Ben Affleck and pouty Henry Cavill. While a sizable portion of the geek community is beside itself with anticipation, I will be avoiding it like sanity avoids a Donald Trump rally. In fact, I am actively rooting for it to fail. Because I hate Zack Snyder. Zack Snyder is the epitome of style-over-substance fanboy directing. The man can craft stylish visuals that go for a “cool” factor, but when it comes to other storytelling…