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Review: Umbrella Corps Is A Clunky Unnecessary Spinoff

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Resident Evil… I recall a time when that name was synonymous with survival horror and all the things that the genre entailed. They were games that forced you to conserve ammo and rely on sparsely available green and red herbs to survive. Instead of focusing on the next big title, (and getting Resident Evil back to its roots) Capcom decided they would venture far off the path. They decided that an online shooter was the way to go. Who could blame them? That is what holds the shelf life of a game these days. So, Umbrella Corps was born.

The story and the options are pretty barebones from the get-go. A training option allows you to suit up as an Umbrella Corp mercenary and learn the ropes of the game. Training is as you would expect, boring for an experienced or even half experienced gamer. It goes through the vanilla motions of showing you how to move around the map, switch and use weapons. The highlight of the weapons comes in the forms of a nasty little hatchet that you are able to charge up in order to unleash vicious melee attacks.

Once you are all trained and ready to go. An almost empty title screen, offers you the options of a multiplayer mode that places your merc in a 3 V 3 game, where you are unable to spawn after you are killed. Loading times between these games are long and annoying. Oddly enough these multiplayer matches are 3 mercs V 3 mercs. Even more odd is the fact that zombies are peppered in on the maps. They are easily dealt with and feel like more of a nuisance than an adversary. Would it have been cool to include Hunters and Lickers and have 3 mercs V those creatures? Well, it definitely would not have hurt and may have added a little variety to gameplay.

“Leveling up 

feels like a chore…”

The matches are unbalanced at best. That is partly due to clunky controls and and weapon damage that makes no sense in any given situation. Once the round is over you are awarded experience points in order to upgrade weapons and customize your mercenary.

Leveling up feels like a chore as opposed to something you are excited to do. Weapon customization is one of the few good things here. Merc armor customization is generic for the most part and will make you recall playing through better Resident Evil games where you were decimating these mercs.

Multi-Mission mode supplies you with a variety of game modes where you are able to re-spawn. This is a little more fast paced and a little more enjoyable but even at my most hopeful, clunky controls would hinder total immersion. The cover system is something that really leaves the game a long way from where it needs to be. The fact that an opponent can run up to you while in cover as easily as they are able to makes it completely useless, outside of hiding.

Umbrella Corps also offers a single-player mode. While I was playing through the multiplayer matches, I kept telling myself that maybe they saved the best stuff for single-player. Again, I was wrong. This mode consists of you mind-numbingly blasting your way through zombies and collecting DNA viles that are dropped. After a few of these types of missions, additional generic objectives are added to later missions that include, collecting briefcases, clearing areas, etc.

“clunky controls  

hinder total immersion”

I’m a huge Resident Evil fan and I had a very hard time finding anything worthwhile contained in this misguided spinoff. The fascination with being a merc for Umbrella, dissolves quickly. The weapon upgrade system and the chargeable hatchet are the only shining lights that remain when all is said and done. Any fun that is had is short-lived and doesn’t give any reason to revisit. Let’s all look forward to Resident Evil 7 and try to forget this departure ever existed.

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Melissa Barrera Says ‘Scary Movie VI’ Would Be “Fun To Do”

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Melissa Barrera might literally get the last laugh on Spyglass thanks to a possible Scary Movie sequel. Paramount and Miramax are seeing the right opportunity to bring the satirical franchise back into the fold and announced last week one might be in production as early as this fall.

The last chapter of the Scary Movie franchise was almost a decade ago and since the series lampoons thematic horror movies and pop culture trends, it would seem they have a lot of content to draw ideas from, including the recent reboot of slasher series Scream.

Barerra, who starred as final girl Samantha in those movies was abruptly fired from the latest chapter, Scream VII, for expressing what Spyglass interpreted as “antisemitism,” after the actress came out in support of Palestine on social media.

Even though the drama wasn’t a laughing matter, Barrera might get her chance to parody Sam in Scary Movie VI. That is if the opportunity arises. In an interview with Inverse, the 33-year-old actress was asked about Scary Movie VI, and her reply was intriguing.

“I always loved those movies,” the actress told Inverse. “When I saw it announced, I was like, ‘Oh, that would be fun. That would be so fun to do.’”

That “fun to do” part could be construed as a passive pitch to Paramount, but that’s open to interpretation.

Just like in her franchise, Scary Movie also has a legacy cast including Anna Faris and Regina Hall. There is no word yet on if either of those actors will appear in the reboot. With or without them, Barrera is still a fan of the comedies. “They have the iconic cast that did it, so we’ll see what goes on with that. I’m just excited to see a new one,” she told the publication.

Barrera is currently celebrating the box office success of her latest horror movie Abigail.

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Thrills and Chills: Ranking ‘Radio Silence’ Films from Bloody Brilliant to Just Bloody

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Radio Silence Films

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, and Chad Villella are all filmmakers under the collective label called Radio Silence. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett are the primary directors under that moniker while Villella produces.

They have gained popularity over the past 13 years and their films have become known as having a certain Radio Silence “signature.” They are bloody, usually contain monsters, and have breakneck action sequences. Their recent film Abigail exemplifies that signature and is perhaps their best film yet. They are currently working on a reboot of John Carpenter’s Escape From New York.

We thought we would go through the list of projects they have directed and rank them from high to low. None of the movies and shorts on this list are bad, they all have their merits. These rankings from top to bottom are just ones we felt showcased their talents the best.

We didn’t include movies they produced but didn’t direct.

#1. Abigail

An update to the second film on this list, Abagail is the natural progression of Radio Silence’s love of lockdown horror. It follows in pretty much the same footsteps of Ready or Not, but manages to go one better — make it about vampires.

Abigail

#2. Ready or Not

This film put Radio Silence on the map. While not as successful at the box office as some of their other films, Ready or Not proved that the team could step outside their limited anthology space and create a fun, thrilling, and bloody adventure-length film.

Ready or Not

#3. Scream (2022)

While Scream will always be a polarizing franchise, this prequel, sequel, reboot — however you want to label it showed just how much Radio Silence knew the source material. It wasn’t lazy or cash-grabby, just a good time with legendary characters we love and new ones who grew on us.

Scream (2022)

#4 Southbound (The Way Out)

Radio Silence tosses their found footage modus operandi for this anthology film. Responsible for the bookend stories, they create a terrifying world in their segment titled The Way Out, which involves strange floating beings and some sort of time loop. It’s kind of the first time we see their work without a shaky cam. If we were to rank this entire film, it would remain at this position on the list.

Southbound

#5. V/H/S (10/31/98)

The film that started it all for Radio Silence. Or should we say the segment that started it all. Even though this isn’t feature-length what they managed to do with the time they had was very good. Their chapter was titled 10/31/98, a found-footage short involving a group of friends who crash what they think is a staged exorcism only to learn not to assume things on Halloween night.

V/H/S

#6. Scream VI

Cranking up the action, moving to the big city and letting Ghostface use a shotgun, Scream VI turned the franchise on its head. Like their first one, this film played with canon and managed to win over a lot of fans in its direction, but alienated others for coloring too far outside the lines of Wes Craven’s beloved series. If any sequel was showing how the trope was going stale it was Scream VI, but it managed to squeeze some fresh blood out of this nearly three-decade mainstay.

Scream VI

#7. Devil’s Due

Fairly underrated, this, Radio Silence’s first feature-length film, is a sampler of things they took from V/H/S. It was filmed in an omnipresent found footage style, showcasing a form of possession, and features clueless men. Since this was their first bonafide major studio job it’s a wonderful touchstone to see how far they have come with their storytelling.

Devil’s Due

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Perhaps the Scariest, Most Disturbing Series of The Year

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You may have never heard of Richard Gadd, but that will probably change after this month. His mini-series Baby Reindeer just hit Netflix and it’s a terrifying deep dive into abuse, addiction, and mental illness. What is even scarier is that it’s based on Gadd’s real-life hardships.

The crux of the story is about a man named Donny Dunn played by Gadd who wants to be a stand-up comedian, but it’s not working out so well thanks to stage fright stemming from his insecurity.

One day at his day job he meets a woman named Martha, played to unhinged perfection by Jessica Gunning, who is instantly charmed by Donny’s kindness and good looks. It doesn’t take long before she nicknames him “Baby Reindeer” and begins to relentlessly stalk him. But that is just the apex of Donny’s problems, he has his own incredibly disturbing issues.

This mini-series should come with a lot of triggers, so just be warned it is not for the faint of heart. The horrors here don’t come from blood and gore, but from physical and mental abuse that go beyond any physiological thriller you may have ever seen.

“It’s very emotionally true, obviously: I was severely stalked and severely abused,” Gadd said to People, explaining why he changed some aspects of the story. “But we wanted it to exist in the sphere of art, as well as protect the people it’s based on.”

The series has gained momentum thanks to positive word-of-mouth, and Gadd is getting used to the notoriety.

“It’s clearly struck a chord,” he told The Guardian. “I really did believe in it, but it’s taken off so quickly that I do feel a bit windswept.”

You can stream Baby Reindeer on Netflix right now.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.

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