Data on the film includes cast and crew credits, trivia, and other information on the movie. The Cutting Edge The Magic of Editing teaches the viewer how editors compile strips of film in order to create memorable moviegoing experiences. In addition to. A Cult Simulator Where You Sacrifice People To A Lovecraftian God. As spring ended in the village, I was left with a tough choice. Which sin made someone more worthy of death embezzlement or kleptomania The Shrouded Isle had turned me into a shrewd cult leader. In The Shrouded Isle, released last Friday on PC, and Mac, you lead a small village whose residents all belong to a cult. The god they worship demands a sacrifice each season. The-LEGO-Batman-Movie-1.jpg' alt='Cult Movie Clips The Lego Movie ' title='Cult Movie Clips The Lego Movie ' />As leader, you appoint a member of each of the villages five major families to be your advisor each season. Each month, you assign three of these advisors to encourage the tenets of the society, such as ignorance, obedience or religious fervor. During the course of the season youll find discover traits that will raise these qualities faster for instance, a particularly violent advisor will boost your obedience. Youll also discover their sins, which is important, because at the end of the season, one of these people have to die. Balancing the sins and virtues of your advisors is challenging, but as I played I found how dark it was compelling. When you sacrifice an advisor, their family reacts to it. You must balance their approval of the way youre running the town, lest they become rebellious. If the sacrificed advisors sins arent bad enough, their family will be angry at you. Sometimes youll be at the end of the month and not have a single advisor with a major sin, and youll ask yourself, Is it worth pissing off this family because their son is a flirt Or should I sacrifice this familys daughter for being too imaginativeThe presentation of the game enhances the mood. The illustrations evoke woodblock prints, and the chilling music is heavy on the foreboding cellos. I especially liked the incidental writing. Each time you mouse over a member of a family, you learn a small fact about them. One character, you learn, lost their tongue as child, while another fell in their youth and never quite recovered. Its difficult to juggle everything you need to win in The Shrouded Isle, but I guess running a cult isnt easy. Over the course of my playthrough, I grew pretty attached to my characters. When I found a particularly fervent or obedient advisor, Id pick them again and again. When I uncovered a rebel, I delighted in sacrificing them. My attachment to these characters also managed to make my losses as satisfying as my wins. Sure, you may not have kept your village ignorant, but that means all the characters youve met over the course of the game have broken free. Im still gunning on meeting our god, Chernobog, and Im weirdly excited to feed him all the sinners he needs. The Phantom May Be the Most Eager to Please Superhero Movie to Ever Wear Spandex. In the 1. 99. 0s, between The Rocketeer, The Shadow, and The Phantom, standalone, retro styled comics films had a moment. Only one, however, featured Billy Zane galloping through the streets of New York City on horseback while wearing a skintight purple unitard. Its hard to argue with anything so cheerfully corny. The Phantom came out in 1. It suffered from being too similar to the movies thatd come just before and from coming out in a year where the big action movies were Independence Day, Twister, The Rock, and Mission Impossible. In comparison to the cutting edge special effects on display in those films, The Phantom looks downright old fashioned. Its plot is old fashioned, too, keeping faith with its source materiala comic strip thats been appearing in newspapers since 1. The comic had some big name fans who circled the adaptation, including the legendary Sergio Leone, Gremlins director Joe Dante, and Batman Robins Joe Schumacher. The gig eventually went to Australian director Simon Wincer, whod hit big in 1. Free Willy. He also made the 1. Tom Selleck Aussie Western Quigley Down Under, which is perhaps a more relevant credit. In The Phantom, the year is 1. Indiana Jones outran a boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Phantom owes a lot to the Indiana Jones series in certain ways, right from the opening act, which begins as a trio of bad guys and a native kid theyve pressed into service as a guide cross a rickety swinging bridge to steal a priceless, supernaturally charged silver skull. The subsequent action sceneslots of derring do on airplane wings, horseback acrobatics, hand to hand combat, shipboard rescues, and clever escapesalso tip their hat to Dr. Jones. But despite the timeline, The Phantom is completely given over to fantasy. No Nazis here. Just a guy who inherited his secret identity from his father and, like, hangs out in a treasure filled cave waiting to fight any villains who might stumble into Bengalla, the nebulously located but vaguely Southeast Asian island that hes sworn to protect. Hes buddies with the indigenous people, who regard him as a folk hero hes also pals with the head of the British jungle patrol that occupies the island. Its a weird conflict of interest that the movie never addresses. Instead of worrying about cultural inappropriateness, or, uh, plot logic, The Phantom instead keeps its focus on light hearted adventure. As Kit The Phantom Walker, Billy Zanein his cheesy beefcake prime here, just a year before he turned scoundrel for Titanicis not exactly the most fascinating hero around. The fact that hes a superhero without any real superpowers unless a pet wolf counts makes him marginally more appealing, though the stakes are never he might die high. Unlike Batman or Superman, the Phantoms not really well known outside the funny pages. No doubt comic creator Lee Falk spent a lot of time crafting the character, who existed for 6. The Phantom movie spends the length of its prologue explaining its protagonists multi generational backstory, but theres not much depth beyond that. A movie made today would contain, at the very least, a flashback to Kit ascending to Phantom hood when his father is killed. Maybe wed learn who his mother was, and how she played a part in his life. Instead, we get just his father in ghost form Patrick Mc. Goohan, popping up in random places to tut tut him and give him guidance. Theres something to be said for a superhero movie that isnt an origin storybut a little more context wouldve gone a long way toward anchoring the story. Shallow though it may be, though, The Phantom is breezily entertainingand you can tell that most everyone involved knew they werent reinventing the wheel. It also has certain flashes of flair that are pretty obviously why its become something of a cult favorite. The three main supporting characters, in particular, do a lot to bulk up the films paper thin story about secret pirate brotherhoods and magical skulls. As mustachioed antagonist Xander Draxthe character spells it out at one point, making sure we notice it begins and ends with an X, for reasons only he knowsTreat Williams is clearly having the best time. Who wouldnt, if they got to play an eyeball stabbing, artifact looting, wannabe world dominating, dapper yet evil businessman Kristy Swanson, so often cast as an airhead, gets to play Diana, the no nonsense love interest who a figures out that Kit is the Phantom, which nobody else ever manages to do and b takes a raincheck on romance by leaving him behind at the end, even though nobody refuses the Phantom. She also punches a bunch of dudes and gets to wear pants throughout the entire movie. Even better, though, is a pre Mask of Zorro Catherine Zeta Jones, who slithers in to play the only character who actually has an arc the glamorous Sala, who commands an awesomely cool squad of lady air pirates. Buy The Secret World Of Arrietty Movie Online. She realizes halfway through the movie that being a mean girl sucksand that she should really be helping the good guys instead. The Phantom is not without flaws. Its got that deliberately retro thing going on, in its 1. But its also got that 2. Phantom dwells alongsidehavent aged so well. The people of Bengalla supposedly chose Kits ancestor to be their avenger and are therefore the reason hes got a superhero mantle at all, but aside from Kits Alfred Pennyworth equivalent and the little kid he saves at the beginning, the islanders are basically treated as set dressing. Its not good and its also a side effect of The Phantoms frantic urge to compact anything resembling exposition in favor of swinging from ropes, sword fighting, flinging pirates into shark infested waters, etc. The Phantom isnt here to illuminate anything about the human condition or even the condition of its characters. It just wants to please and have fun. Logic be damned. This is a movie that sends its jungle dwelling, leotard wearing hero to New York City makes careful mention of the fact that he attended college there, which suggests he must have some degree of smarts and then has him pay an incredulous cab driver with a pocket full of jewels, because thats the only thing of value he bothered to bring with him. Its ridiculous, and it pulls you out of the movie to ask yourself, Wait. Itd be very easy to ding The Phantom for the many WTF moments like this one, butlike Billy Zanes campy performanceits too goofy and earnest to hate it. Look, if you want darkness, gloom, existential pain, and cynicism, there are a zillion other superhero movies you could watch instead. Or you could have a blast with the movie that decided to bring you this.