Category: Other

Horror Films That Genuinely Upset Me

Published October 23, 2023

As a fan of horror, I’ve seen quite a few films that many others would consider to be too upsetting to watch. If you want some examples, feel free to take a look at my articles concerning the films of the Disturbing Movie Iceberg and the New French Extremity. I was able to watch these movies without much issue, although the tortoise sequence in Cannibal Holocaust did make me feel a little queasy, but it’s interestingly been a couple of relatively tame horror films that actually managed to genuinely upset me in a way that I found both disturbing and triggering. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting if we took a look at the two films in question, the scenes in question and why they managed to get under my skin when so many others were unable to. Even though it may seem obvious, I still wish to warn you that there will be spoilers for the two films in question.

Drag Me To Hell

Of all the films that may’ve upset me, I’m sure many of you weren’t expecting this one, the Sam Raimi directed 2009 film Drag Me to Hell. From what I remember, it’s a pretty good movie. Following Christine Brown, a loan officer, as she has to contend with the curse a Romani woman gave her after her house was repossessed. She attempts to fight back against the curse with the help of a fortune teller and it’s one of these attempts that is the part that upsets me. You see, Christine has a pet cat at home and the fortune teller tells her that an animal sacrifice may be required to stave off the entity haunting her. She is abhorred by the suggestion but, after a particular incident, she is driven to sacrifice her cat in an ultimately futile attempt to free herself.

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The Films I’ve Seen From The Disturbing Movie Iceberg Part 2

Published October 19, 2023

Here is the conclusion to “The Films I’ve Seen From The Disturbing Movie Iceberg Part 1“

Tier 2 – Saw

We’re finally onto the second tier and we’re starting with one that I, and I’m sure many of you, are familiar with, Saw. I’m actually quite a fan of the franchise, even though there are several entries that are…not great, and the first Saw is quite deserving of the success that it earned. The mystery at the heart of the film is engaging with much of the background giving us new insight into the characters. Admittedly, the film isn’t as gory as I would like it to be, something that the sequels quickly dealt with, and there’s one plot hole that does bother me but I look forward to watching it every time I feel in the mood to watch the franchise.

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The Films I’ve Seen From The Disturbing Movie Iceberg Part 1

Published October 16, 2023

It’s October! That special time of year when people are more receptive to horror media which I absolutely adore! Therefore, I thought I’d write some horror articles that have been long overdue with the first one being on quite an interesting subject, the Disturbing Movie Iceberg. I spoke before about how my interest in disturbing movies has waxed and waned but I still thought it might be interesting to take a look at the films that I have seen from the Disturbing Movie Iceberg and to give my opinion on them.

Tier 1 – Friday the 13th

The original Friday the 13th sparked a series that currently consists of twelve films, ten of which I’ve seen, and is probably one of the most recognisable horror film franchises ever. Assuming that the iceberg is referring to the original film, something I’ll have to do several times throughout this article, Friday the 13th from 1980 is a respectable slasher film with some deliciously great kills courtesy of Tom Savini and a few clever plot points that may actually surprise viewers, particularly those who are familiar with the later films. However, it also has to be said that this movie also displays some of the biggest weaknesses when it comes to slashers such as the paper-thin characters, the long wait between kills and the subpar acting but I do find myself enjoying it whenever I watch it and I do think it’s definitely worth a watch, perhaps serving as a Halloween party film!

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An Overview Of The Black Jack Franchise

Published October 5, 2023

Osamu Tezuka’s massive body of work is sometimes overshadowed by the success of Astro Boy, to the point where I’m only able to tell certain people who Osamu Tezuka is by bringing up Astro Boy to them. However, one of the most important series that Osamu Tezuka ever created has, itself, grown into quite a respectable franchise, one that easily attains greater critical reception than that of Astro Boy and is also commercially successful, being Osamu Tezuka’s second bestselling manga behind Astro Boy itself. Therefore, I thought it worth providing an overview of this fascinating franchise, Black Jack.

The Black Jack manga ran from 1973-83 in Weekly Shonen Champion and proved to be so successful that it’s often referred to as having rejuvenated Osamu Tezuka’s career. The manga follows the titular Black Jack, a genius surgeon who is unlicensed, as he encounters all sorts of unusual cases, patients and situations alongside his assistant/adopted daughter Pinoko. The series itself is told episodically with a few chapters fleshing out the background of its main cast but the quality of these stories proves remarkable and, in my personal opinion, is much more consistent than Astro Boy. It is also one of the best-selling manga series of all time with an estimated 50 million copies being sold in Japan!

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An Overview Of The Blood Franchise

Published October 2, 2023

When you think of franchises from Japan, you probably think of Dragon Ball, Godzilla, Pokémon etc. but I doubt many of you think of the Blood franchise. It’s certainly not one that would spring to my mind either but I took a look at it the other day and I noticed that it actually has quite a few notable entries now which prove to be surprisingly diverse in terms of both style and media. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to do an overview of the Blood franchise and look at the various works within it.

Of course, the logical place to start with any overview of a franchise is the first entry and Blood is no different. The origins of this series begins in 2000 when a 45 minute film called Blood: The Last Vampire was released by Production I.G. The film is set in 1966 and follows a girl called Saya who hunts down creatures called Chiropterans, vampires that physically resemble bats. The film was well-received and proved to be an international hit where it sold very well on VHS and DVD. Spin-offs such as manga, light novels and even a game soon followed but the original film itself never got a sequel.

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Pointing Out The Problems With AI Generated Blog Posts

Published September 28, 2023

The issue of AI generated content has been the cause of a lot of discussion lately and with good reason. This technology has the potential to change the way content is produced but there are a lot of issues that need to be addressed. Besides the ethics of it, which are probably too diverse for me to discuss here, there is also the issue of quality. Having listened to all of the discussion about AI, I was curious to see how it would tackle writing a blog post and tried Google Bard, a chatbot released by Google which is currently in the experimental stage. The results were problematic and so I thought it worth pointing out the problems with AI generated blog posts and why I won’t be rushing to use AI to make my content anytime soon.

Let’s start with a quick test that I ran before I started writing this article. Out of curiosity, I asked Google Bard to generate a blog post about immortalliumblog.com. The .com part proved to be a problem so I asked the same question, saying immortalliumblog instead. What ended up coming back was a complete mess that stated that immortalliumblog was about the future of technology and its impact on humanity, directing me then to some articles from various websites while claiming that they were blog posts. How this AI came up with this is a mystery to me so I tried one last time asking the question but separating immortallium from the word blog. The result that came back did at least correctly identify that I, Eoghan O’Connell, created the blog with the intent to cover anime, manga and video games. However, the information that it got incorrect was overwhelming. For one, it claimed that I set up this blog in 2021 while immortalliumblog.com was actually released in late 2019, as evidenced by this first blog post that I ever published. Additionally, it claimed that I not only covered the latest news and trends with regards to anime, manga and video games but also wrote reviews of popular titles, something that I have not done, instead leaving my reviews for other outlets such as YouTube and UK Anime Network. Finally, it provided some links which it claimed led to my most popular blog posts but, in fact, led to a variety of completely unrelated websites.

The Google Bard generated blog post in question.

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Multiplane Cameras And How Important They Are In Traditional Animation

Published September 7, 2023

While I do appreciate CG animated and stop-motion films, I still like traditional animation the most and am always eager to learn more about it, particularly given how rare it can be to see a Western traditional animated film these days. One of the less appreciated, at least from a mainstream audience, aspects of traditional animation was the use of multiplane cameras, an important revolution when it came to the production of animation.

Let’s start by describing what a multiplane camera is. The multiplane camera is actually a setup which sees a camera placed facing down at the top while beneath it are several layers, each containing drawn artwork which are carefully transparent at key locations. They are then moved at different speeds while shots are taken frame by frame. It’s a complicated and labour intensive process but the benefits and applications are remarkable.

A diagram of a multiplane camera setup being presented by Walt Disney.

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The History Of Vampires In Japanese Media

Published August 28, 2023

Anyone who’s familiar with anime, manga, video games or many other forms of Japanese media will know that vampires are a popular subject with numerous vampire fictions being created throughout the history of these mediums. However, it may surprise you to learn that vampires have only recently grown popular in Japan and, so, I thought I’d take a look at the history of vampires in Japanese media.

To begin, it’s interesting to note that vampires are foreign to Japan with vampires typically associated with European mythology. However, blood-drinking creatures can be found in a wide variety of cultures worldwide and Japan is no exception. Amongst the yokai of Japan, two particularly notable examples that drink blood are the Rokurokubi, creatures who look like women but are capable of extending their neck in a snake-like manner or even detaching their head and flying around, and the Nure-onna, creatures that look like snakes with the head of women, sometimes with arms as well, that uses their tongue to suck the blood out of a body.

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Movie Directors I Consider To Be My Favourite

Published August 17, 2023

I love the medium of film and I can acknowledge the great effort that goes into making them. However, I, like most people, have found myself drawn to particular directors whose works left a profound impact on me. To give some criteria for this article, I have to have seen at least half or more of a directors filmography, I’m going to be generous and say that they only need to have directed two or more films and their body of work needs to have transcended entertainment and affected me on a personal level. This last criteria is the most important because there are many directors out there who are highly regarded and, while I appreciate the craftsmanship of their films, their movies don’t leave me thinking and contemplating them long afterwards. With all that said and done and in no particular order, let’s take a look at some of the movie directors that I consider to be my favourite.

1. Wes Craven

I recently had a bit of a Wes Craven marathon where I watched fifteen out of the twenty films that he directed over the course of his lifetime with his films that I haven’t seen being Swamp Thing, The Hills Have Eyes Part II, Deadly Friend, Vampire in Brooklyn and Music of the Heart. Like many people, I started with his Scream films and A Nightmare on Elm Street and loved them with A Nightmare on Elm Street briefly becoming my favourite horror film of all time. I experienced other films from him in piecemeal over the years such as The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes but I finally settled down to watch as many of his films as I could recently. As you may imagine, watching the majority of his work one after another gave me a deep appreciation for his talent and, while there were a few that I didn’t care for like My Soul to Take and Cursed, his films have proved to stick with me for both the right and wrong reasons with The People Under the Stairs being an underrated masterpiece and Shocker being a movie that’s so crazy and all over the place that I derive great pleasure from watching it.

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The Social Importance Of Blood Types In Japan

Published July 31, 2023

It’s not uncommon to see a character in Japanese media introduce themselves by giving their name, age and blood type and this can be quite confusing to many readers/viewers. Even being aware of this, I was still caught off-guard when I was watching Ultraman 80 the other night and saw the main character get berated for not know his own blood type. I wasn’t even aware of my blood type until recently so it’s strange but fascinating to see so much importance attributed to it in Japan. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the social importance of blood types in Japan.

The term “blood type personality theory” refers to a pseudoscientific belief that blood type is a major component of a person’s personality, thus their social importance in Japan. Essentially, the belief is that type O people are confident leaders while also being aggressive and selfish, Type A people are compassionate and neat but also shy and obsessive and Type B people are extroverted and creative while also being uncooperative and impatient. Type AB people are a mixture of the personalities that Type A and Type B have.

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