my last blog post

i'm aware i haven't used this blog since october and even then my posts were fairly irregular so i've decided to formally shut it down. who knows, maybe i'll start blogging again some day, but i don't want it to just sit here abandoned. there's something weird about abandoned blogs; they're like empty houses but with all the stuff belonging to the previous owner left behind. bloggers project an illusion of activity. even writing about something impersonal like film reviews still suggests some activity; that the person writing went out and did a thing, even if that thing most involved sitting down. the blogger lives, as long as they continue to blog. when they stop suddenly it's like the person writing has ceased to exist. i don't want that to happen here so this is me signing off. i still exist, but i'll mostly be existing on twitter and youtube now.

before i go i thought i'd write one last post. it's part blogging history, part blogging highlights and it will be long, but probably shorter than if you were to read my whole blog from day one. probably.

my first post is dated 20th september 2014, but it's not the best place to start. i wrote more of an introduction in my review of chill (because i didn't want to write about the film) so there's more about me there if you're interested. i don't know why you would be, i'm not that interesting. i'd been offline for a long time at that point due to a hacking/cyberbullying incident that i talked about later. i'd intended to stay offline, but i just couldn't shake the idea that i could be a success on youtube. that sounds so fucking idiotic when i read it back, but it was true. i felt like it was my calling; like i couldn't possibly do anything else. if i'd known then what i know now... anyway, that's youtube, let's stay focused on the blog.

when i started i didn't really know what i was doing. i reviewed films, music, video games, books, live shows and even reality tv (if anyone wants to start a petition for most haunted to bring back dr. john callow i'll share the fuck out of that thing). i wasn't ready to start making my own content on youtube at that point but i decided to do what i thought was the next best thing - i interviewed some youtubers. there was morgan gleave, amber goluckie, bianca allaine and george reece. just over a year later george appeared on my youtube channel and i interviewed him in person -

towards the end of 2014 i was starting to receive emails from publicists and distributors asking if i'd review stuff for them. i turned down these requests at first; i wanted to choose what i wanted to write about and i liked that it didn't have to be whatever was being released that week. then i started to receive emails about really interesting titles from labels like eureka and arrow who were releasing films that i either already loved or wanted to see anyway. so i started reviewing new releases, or in most cases re-releases of cult classics, and suddenly i was a legit film critic.

my personal favourite of these has to be my review of the human centipede 3 (final sequence). i loved that film and i felt like my take on it was a little different to what everyone else was writing about it. that review became one of my most popular posts, the director tom six retweeted it and the star of the film, dieter laser, even called me a genius.

@pazvsstuff most intelligent critic I read about THC3 yet

— Dieter Laser (@Dieter_Laser) 6 July 2015

@pazvsstuff I mean it you are genius no matter if you would have liked it or not - just highly able to read and assess

— Dieter Laser (@Dieter_Laser) 6 July 2015

along with the films i was being sent to review i continued to write about titles that interested me or that i thought i had a different take on. see no evil 2 was one of these and another review that was praised by the filmmakers -

@pazvsstuff You rock! Thank you for taking the time to check it out & share your thoughts.

— The Soska Sisters (@twisted_twins) 6 January 2015

i also reviewed the microbudget found-footage film hungerford, which i only mention here because a year later i attended the v.i.p. screening of director drew casson's latest film, darkest dawn -

more on that later.

another blogging highlight is the piece i wrote about the ghostbusters reboot, or more specifically the reaction to the ghostbusters reboot. i got into some juicy arguments on twitter because of that one, something i used to enjoy. i don't enjoy arguing with people on twitter so much anymore. i've realised you have no idea who you're really talking to, and that's not always a good thing. sometimes the internet doesn't seem like much of a fun place at all, which is part of the reason i'm shutting down my blog. i talk a bit about that here, and this is when i'd only just started to have problems -

on a happier note, my personal blogging highlight of last year was the found footage horror blogathon where i wrote about a bunch of found footage movies. i also did a couple of interviews as part of the series, one with michael steinberg who runs foundfootagecritic.com and another with warren dudley, who directed the cutting room.

here are a few more of my film reviews that i think are worth checking out, either because they're interesting films or because i have a different take on them -

everly
batman: arkham origins
digging up the marrow
chuck norris vs. communism
nekromantik 2
superbob
batman v superman: dawn of justice
society

my blog activity really started to slow down in july of this year, mostly because an exciting opportunity had come up. teneighty is a magazine that focuses on uk youtube culture and earlier this year i joined their news team. this felt like it was a huge step at the time - suddenly i had an editor and deadlines and it required a level of professionalism i wasn't really used to but that i found really motivating. you can check out everything i wrote for teneighty here, but the real highlights for me were the interviews with carlos montero from youth killed it and with james moran, creator of mina murray's journal. i'm particularly fond of the interview with james because i think re-telling dracula on youtube is such a great idea and i love that the characters exist and interact with their audience on twitter.

then there was the darkest dawn screening i referred to earlier. this was huge for me, it felt like the culmination of all the work i'd put into my writing, starting with that first blog post in september 2014. it felt like i was being taken seriously, and it felt like maybe this was something i could do full time. as a career. i also got to meet some super famous youtubers like bethan leadley and cherry wallis -

and i finally met writer, actor and youtuber paul neafcy who had featured in one of my videos earlier in the year -

it was great to see the film too and to write about it. i think that night was the happiest i've been for a long time. my only regret is that i didn't film it but maybe that's for the best. maybe the memory is better than the reality anyway.

i wrote a couple more pieces for teneighty then i quit. it feels weird saying that after writing about how much i was enjoying it and i really was enjoying it. suddenly it felt like i had prospects and ideas for things i wanted to do. i quit anyway. i won't go into my reasons in great detail here. all you really need to know is in this video -

i may return to writing and blogging at some point, but if i do it will be under a different name and in a different place. the concept of identity and of being myself online used to seem like a big deal to me but i'm not sure it matters anymore. reinvention is the only way i can see myself getting through this, if i can get through it at all.

for now i'd just like to thank everyone who's been reading this blog over the years, especially those who have commented or retweeted and shared the links on twitter. if you want to stay in touch i'd recommend my youtube channel, pazvsstuff. i post videos roughly every two weeks and if you leave a comment i will always reply eventually.

thanks for reading.

paz

hungerford

hungerford is a found-footage sci-fi/horror film written and directed by 19-year-old drew casson. who also did the visual effects. and plays the main character. and it’s rather good.

the films follows film student cowen rosewell as he films his friends adam, kip and phillipa as part of a college media project. however, there’s something wrong with the town of hungerford and cowen soon realises he is capturing the end of the world on video.

it would be lazy of me to compare this film to things like shaun of the dead and the world’s end (despite the obvious influences and the fact that the former is referenced in the film). sure, it’s a group of friends dealing with an apocalypse in a small town so the similarities seem obvious, but there’s actually a lot more going on here. in terms of influences i actually saw more of a direct parallel with 50s sci-fi movies like them! and invasion of the body snatchers. the alien parasites in hungerford also attach themselves to the back of their host’s neck in a way that reminded me of invaders from mars, or robert a. heinlein's novel the puppet masters (which was also turned into a film. hungerford is much better than that film).

but enough about influences, hungerford is very much it’s own thing. there are two really interesting themes at play here. early on, the friends are on the way to a party when they see two men assaulting a third man. at this stage the alien parasite plot is yet to be introduced and even then it's unclear if this incident has anything to do with it. the important thing is that the friends do not intervene; they leave the victim to his fate because they want to get to their party. this is a film about youth, and about how at a certain age we are so preoccupied with our own lives and our own dramas that we don’t even see the end of the world when it’s happening right in front of us. i could really relate to that.

the second big theme of the film is to do with moving on. the other characters continuously tell cowen that he’s wasting his time in hungerford; that he needs to move away and get on with his life. what happens to hungerford could almost be seen as what happens to your life if you leave it too late to move ahead. the idea of parasites controlling your every move could easily be transposed to getting a dull job in your home town and being trapped there forever. the four friends are constantly risking their lives for each other, but ultimately because of this they are unable to escape and rather than this coming across as a message about the importance of friendship, i saw it as the risk of friends holding you back. maybe i’m reading too much of my own experiences into this, but for me when things really kicked off in the film i couldn’t help thinking ‘you should’ve left while you had the chance’.

when things do kick off they really kick off. there’s a moment early on where it appears as though the film could all take place in one flat, and given that i’m assuming the budget was fairly low i can see why this would be a tempting prospect. casson dismisses that idea about halfway through, taking us out into the town and ultimately into the heart of the alien lair itself. however much it cost, the production value on screen is huge, particularly in the later scenes in which cowen follows a team of soldiers through rooms strewn with cocooned bodies. that said, casson handles the smaller moments really well too and there are a couple of genuinely creepy scenes towards the end.

for all it's innovation there are moments in hungerford where the constraints of the budget and the limited experience of the cast and crew pulled me out of the story. the performances are a bit shaky in the more intense scenes and the dialogue is occasionally a bit over the top and on the nose. that said, what the actors occasionally lack in subtlety they make up for in likability. i enjoyed hanging out with these people and that counts for everything because when the aliens came i really cared about what was going to happen to these characters. it’s a small but fundamental element that most big budget films of the same genre forget, but it’s front and centre here.

you should watch this film, not because it was made for no money, or because it’s exactly the kind of thing the british film industry should be producing, or because it was made by an extraordinarily talented individual who deserves to be supported. you should watch it because it’s really good.

check out the hungerford website for more details.