Author: Chris Scullion

Chris Scullion is a Scottish video games journalist who's been covering video games professionally for 16 years. For the first six years of his career he worked at the Official Nintendo Magazine in the UK, then became the Games Editor of CVG before its untimely end. After setting up his own site, Tired Old Hack, Chris then joined Video Games Chronicle (VGC) where he is currently Features Editor. He has a passion for retro games and cataloguing their history, hence his ongoing series of console encyclopedia books (search his name on Amazon).

Series Overview – Child’s Play (1988-2013)

Published on November 3, 2013October 27, 2023 by Chris Scullion4 Comments

The Child’s Play films tell the story of Chucky, a doll possessed by the serial killer Charles Lee Ray. Although Chucky’s general aim in each movie remains the same – to escape from his doll body by possessing a human’s soul – the tone of the series grew more light-hearted over the years until Seed Of Chucky, which was a flat-out comedy.

More recently, Chucky returned to straight horror in Curse Of Chucky, essentially bringing the series full circle.

Click each poster for the full review.

Child’s Play (1988)
“This particular doll is possessed by Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif), a serial killer and voodoo nut who transforms his soul into the doll just before he’s killed by a police officer. The doll, Chucky, sets about killing Andy’s babysitter as well as the other criminal chaps who screwed him over before his ‘death’. Cue various explosions and voodoo doll stabbings.” Continue reading “Series Overview – Child’s Play (1988-2013)” →

Curse Of Chucky (2013) review

Published on October 27, 2013November 3, 2013 by Chris Scullion2 Comments

Director: Don Mancini

Starring: Fiona Dourif, Brad Dourif, Danielle Bisutti, Maitland McConnell

ALICE – “Chucky, I’m scared.”

CHUCKY – “You fucking should be.”

The success of Bride Of Chucky and its follow-up Seed Of Chucky mean these days Chucky is commonly considered a horror comedy star. Despite this, there still remains a core following of long-time horror fans who have been hoping for years that everyone’s favourite killer doll would return to his roots and appear in another ‘proper’ horror film in the style of the original Child’s Play trilogy.

Curse Of Chucky is that horror film, with nary a dick joke, sex scene or zany sidekick in sight. Although it’s the first Chucky film to go straight-to-video, don’t let that put you off, because this is old-school Chucky doing what he does best – pretending to be a doll while trying to steal a small child’s soul.

Set four years after Seed Of Chucky, Curse begins with a mysterious package turning up at the house of Nica (Fiona Dourif), a wheelchair-bound paraplegic who lives with her mother. Predictably, the package contains Chucky, but Nica’s at a loss as to who would have sent this odd-looking doll. It’s a wonder she’s never heard of Chucky – she should probably get out more. Oh, right, the wheelchair. Continue reading “Curse Of Chucky (2013) review” →

Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) review

Published on October 10, 2013October 12, 2013 by Chris Scullion5 Comments

Director: Joseph Zito

Starring: Kimberly Beck, Corey Feldman, Crispin Glover, Peter Barton, Ted White

“Jesus Christmas! Holy Jesus! Goddamn! Holy Jesus jumping Christmas shit!” (Axel, Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter)

Oh, you poor, deluded fools. To think there was once a time when the fourth film in the Friday The 13th series was supposed to be the last one ever.

Of course, hindsight tells us this couldn’t have been further from the truth – Jason would go on to star in a further eight movies – but for now let’s treat The Final Chapter as the concluding part it was seemingly intended to be.

Following on from the end of the third movie, an apparently dead Jason is carted off to the local morgue where he rests with his victims. Predictably, it’s not long before he’s up and at them again, killing a couple of doctors on his way out of the building. Continue reading “Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) review” →

The Craft (1996) review

Published on October 7, 2013December 4, 2013 by Chris Scullion3 Comments

Director: Andrew Fleming

Starring: Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, Rachel True, Skeet Ulrich, Christine Taylor

BONNIE – “The almanac says today will bring an arrival or something.”

NANCY – “Yeah, wonderful, I’m getting my rag.”

When you’re a teenage girl, moving to a new city and having to join a new school must be a pain in the arse at the best of times. When the head jock at the school makes matters even worse by telling everyone you were a crap shag even though you never did anything with him, there’s only one logical solution – become a witch.

At least, that’s the conclusion Sarah (Robin Tunney, starring these days in The Mentalist) comes to. She decides to get friendly with three weird girls who have an unhealthy obsession with the occult.

Each of the girls wants to harness the power of the ‘creator’ Manon for their own reasons. Bonnie (Neve Campbell) has massive scarring on her back and wants to be able to shed it so she can feel self-confident again. Continue reading “The Craft (1996) review” →

Cannibal Holocaust (1980) (Video Nasty review #8)

Published on October 6, 2013December 4, 2013 by Chris Scullion8 Comments

Director: Ruggero Deodato

Starring: Robert Kerman, Francesca Ciardi, Perry Pirkanen, Gabriel Yorke, Luca Barbareschi

TV EXECUTIVE – “Today people want sensationalism. The more you rape their senses the happier they are.”

PROFESSOR MONROE – “Ah, yes, that’s typical western thought. Civilised, isn’t it? That’s what Alan thought and that’s why he’s dead. The Yacumo Indian is a primitive and he has to be respected as such. You know, did you ever think of the Yacumo point of view? That we might be the savages?”

Note: Other then the official film poster above, the rest of the images in this review have deliberately been chosen to hide some of the film’s gorier, more offensive scenes. Despite this, the review still features descriptions of these scenes and as such those with a weak stomach may wish to just give this film their own score of zero and move on.

The story goes that when Sergio Leone – the legendary Italian director of Once Upon A Time In The West and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly – first saw Cannibal Holocaust, he felt compelled to write a letter to his friend Ruggero Deodato, the film’s director.

It read: “Dear Ruggero, what a movie! The second part is a masterpiece of cinematographic realism, but everything seems so real that I think you will get in trouble with all the world.”

He was right. Cannibal Holocaust was eventually banned in numerous countries (the unofficial estimate is around 50, including the UK and its native Italy), and such was the realistic nature of the on-screen deaths that Deodato was actually arrested and held on trial under suspicion of murder of the four main actors – a charge he was only able to drop after getting all four actors to appear at the courtroom. Continue reading “Cannibal Holocaust (1980) (Video Nasty review #8)” →

Friday The 13th Part III (1982) review

Published on October 5, 2013October 5, 2013 by Chris Scullion4 Comments

Director: Steve Miner

Starring: Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, Larry Zerner, Richard Brooker

“Is that all you’re gonna do this weekend? Smoke dope?” (Shelly, Friday The 13th Part III)

After the second Friday The 13th movie ended with the doors left wide open for a sequel, that inevitable follow-up sauntered through said doors just one year later in the shape of the imaginatively titled Friday The 13th Part III.

The second film concluded with the survivor conveniently blacking out and having no idea where Jason had gone, so the third begins just one day later as a still very-much alive Jason heads to a lakefront property called Higgins Haven, where he takes solace in a nearby farmhouse to rest his wounds.

As Jason’s luck would have it, yet another group of sexually active teens are on their way to spend the week at Higgins Haven, blissfully unaware one of the horror genre’s most notorious slashers is camping out in the building next door. Continue reading “Friday The 13th Part III (1982) review” →

Friday The 13th Part 2 (1981) review

Published on October 2, 2013October 2, 2013 by Chris Scullion3 Comments

Director: Steve Miner

Starring: Amy Steel, John Furey, Warrington Gillette

“I told the others, they didn’t believe me. You’re all doomed! You’re all doomed!” (Crazy Ralph, Friday The 13th Part 2)

It’s common knowledge among horror fans that Jason isn’t actually the killer in Friday The 13th, and it’s in fact his mum who wanders around coating the forests of Camp Crystal Lake with teenage blood. Eager to cash in with a sequel but realising they couldn’t pull off the same trick twice (not to mention the fact that Mrs Voorhees was decapitated at the end of the first film), Paramount decided it was time to finally introduce Jason himself.

Before opening with a short prologue to ensure the first film’s heroine is quickly done away with, Friday The 13th Part 2 jumps forward five years to introduce us to a new group of potential teenage victims. These cheery (and horny) scamps are headed to the countryside to take part in a training session so they can learn how to be camp counsellors. Continue reading “Friday The 13th Part 2 (1981) review” →

Out NOW – That Was A Bit Mental: Volume 1 – the ebook!

Published on October 1, 2013January 7, 2014 by Chris Scullion1 Comment

Hello again, Chris.

Hello there, disembodied voice who is actually me trying to create a slightly more entertaining narrative by writing in a Q&A style. How are things?

Not bad. I’ve just had my dinner and I’m in the process of considering what to do with the rest of the evening.

JK Rowling — Me, working on my book last month (note: may not actually be me)

(Careful mate, you’re building your part up a bit.)

(Sorry.)

What’s that? You don’t know what to do this evening? Why not buy and download That Was A Bit Mental: Volume 1?

Buy and download? Are you out of your bastard mind? That Was A Bit Mental is a website, not a book.

Not any more, aggressive imaginary person! That Was A Bit Mental: Volume 1 is finally available for download on Kindle devices and any other device with access to a Kindle app.

Took you long enough.

Indeed. Turns out re-editing 100 reviews, adding extra trivia and jokes to them and researching DVD and Blu-ray information on all of them took well over a hundred hours of spare time, something I didn’t actually have a lot of what with getting married and all. Continue reading “Out NOW – That Was A Bit Mental: Volume 1 – the ebook!” →

The Day After (1983) review

Published on July 20, 2013September 29, 2013 by Chris Scullion1 Comment

Director: Nicholas Meyer

Starring: Jason Robards, JoBeth Williams, Steve Guttenberg

DR OAKES – “Do you have any idea what’s going on in this world?”
DR LANDOWSKA – “Yeah. Stupidity. It has a habit of getting its way.”

The threat of nuclear attack is something that has remained ever-present for the past 70 years. The technology may keep improving, and the potential enemy may keep changing, but whether it’s the Japanese, the North Koreans, the Americans, the Cubans, the Iraqis (ha!) or – in the case of The Day After – the Russians who are the would-be obliterators, much of the world lives its day-to-day life with the constant underlying knowledge that at any point another pissed-off country could press a button and that’d be that.

The Day After was an ambitious and brave TV movie that attempted to convince all who watched it that nuclear war shouldn’t be the ultimate answer (which sort of goes without saying, but some people are a bit daft). It shows the build-up, the result and the aftermath of a fictional nuclear attack on Kansas City. Continue reading “The Day After (1983) review” →

Taken 2 (2012) review

Published on May 2, 2013September 30, 2013 by Chris ScullionLeave a comment

Director: Olivier Megaton

Starring: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Rade Serbedzija

BRYAN – “If I kill you, your other sons will come and seek revenge?”
MURAD – “They will.”
BRYAN – “And I will kill them too.”

When the hero in an action movie ploughs his way through countless baddies, butchering and slaughtering them in the name of our entertainment (as well as whatever cockamamie reason the plot’s given him, of course), we never spare a thought for the families of the recently deceased.

After all, for every nameless terrorist, anonymous criminal and nondescript thug there’s a mother, a father and maybe even a wife and children somewhere mourning the death of a man who may have been a bit of a prick in real life but was always good to them at least. We’re usually never shown these devoted family members in films though, because it humanises the enemies and makes you feel sorry for them, when all you’re supposed to be thinking is “YES, chuck that fanny over the cliff”.

Taken 2 pic 1 — “There’s the prick who told me to change at Kennington”

This is the thinking behind Taken 2, which takes place a few months after the events of the first film. Naturally, in order for me to describe the plot you’re going to have to accept that there are a couple of very minor spoilers from the first film ahead (nothing that you couldn’t reasonably predict yourself though).

After Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) killed a load of Albanians on the way to his kidnapped daughter in the first Taken, the families of the deceased receive the bodies and vow to get revenge on the man that, in their eyes, butchered a village’s worth of young men. Through the traditional Taken plot methods (i.e. absurdly unlikely coincidences) they find Bryan on holiday in Turkey with his ex-wife (Famke Janssen) and daughter Kim (Maggie Grace). Continue reading “Taken 2 (2012) review” →