In H.P. Lovecraft’s America, Halloween seems almost redundant, but we can all try our best to get in the festive spirit anyway. Between the cults and the plague, any horror movie you watch this time of year seems downright sunny by comparison. And now most of our leadership exists in a Red-Wedding-cliffhanger twilight of infection. I told you guys, zombie apocalypse.
I’ve been sucked into the cult of Cultist Simulator!
I got the game off Steam for an early birthday present for myself, in keeping with the spirit of an Autumn person. I haven’t been able to put it down since! This led to my writing up a review / guide / journey through Cultist Simulator at my GeekyDomain gig – not once, not twice, but in three parts.
First upon discovery, I was a big smart-ass quoting lots of Lovecraft as I began to explore the game basics and struggled with its obstacles. Cultist Simulator : The Ungame Game
Then after I’d been taken down a notch, I continued exploring the game while frankly reporting both my false starts and my eventual glimmerings of insight. Cultist Simulator part 2 : RTFM! – Yes, the whole game really is based on reading TRUCKLOADS of ancient arcane tomes and gleaning occult scraps of knowledge from them.
By part three, I’d become confident enough that I felt I had the game down to at least a primitive science. I’ve since built upon the basic strategy I outline here and have indeed gotten to where I could have a major victory if I’d wanted it. Cultist Simulator part 3 : How Many Books Are There, Anyway? (It’s easy, you just pump your cult influence at 36+ points into a Rite, toss in your path Dedication, and you ascend – to godhood, one assumes.) I was having too much fun summoning demons and sending them on stupid errands at that point to care beans about finishing.
In just about two weeks’ play by this point, I’m still blown away by Cultist Simulator. It’s the kind of game I quest for when prowling the indie scene – rich in atmosphere, brilliant in its original game mechanics, inviting in its open-ended exploration, and unfettered in its creativity. I grant that the game has its flaws and may not be for everybody, but for me, it’s the most engrossing game I’ve seen since Minecraft came out.
Hail to the zombie chief!
Donald Trump caught the ‘rona at the beginning of October (we now believe), and we’re all just left wondering “What took so long?” Trump tried so hard to catch COVID-19 for so long, it’s a wonder the virus didn’t file a restraining order against him.
The event of having a sitting president fall victim to the same virus which has killed 200K+ Americans while that same president has been denying its danger, not to mention splash damage infecting half the GOP, has predictably made everybody lose their flippin’ mind. The reactions leave me no doubt in my mind that a Lovecraftian game about cults is the right choice for October entertainment. Take this historic tweet:
Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020
Right away I saw a string of replies that all followed this pattern:
That’s a drawing of Baphomet, supposed deity of the Knights Templar, and some Greek text. There were several accounts that did this in the same reply thread, though each one used a different occult picture and different language. I ran the Greek text through Google Translate and:
In fact, I find numerous replies of this nature using languages ranging from Hebrew to something originating around Indonesia. So apparently there’s an international cartel of users trying to curse Donald Trump through Santeria.
So that happens. In this unique situation, everybody around me has been hesitant to say what they’re really feeling. I have to point this out to people one at a time:
It is normal to wish death upon the president at this time.
I don’t advise it, but it is a natural reaction. 200,000 American people have died because Trump basically sentenced them without crime, just to sacrifice them for his stock market ratings. His reaction: “It is what it is.”
Being angry at Trump right now is a matter of self-defense. I would not have thought less of a Chinese citizen had they wished death upon Mao Zedong during China’s Great famine. I would not have expected charitable feelings from Armenians towards the Turks of the Ottoman Empire during the Armenian Genocide. I was unsurprised to see anti-Arabian sentiments after 9/11. When something is a threat to you, you don’t like it. That’s hardwired into the brain.
It is of course far nobler to rise above primitive survival instincts. When I saw candidate Joe Biden being among the first to wish Trump a speedy recovery, I had to remark what a class move it was. I remembered Trump mocking Clinton in 2016 because she came down with pneumonia on the campaign trail. This is Donald Trump’s degree of sympathy for cerebral palsy cripples:
When somebody has that kind of disregard for human life, and then they themselves get sick with the plague they helped create, what else are you supposed to say? It is natural to have uncharitable thoughts about them.
You can exert your restraint and hold those dark thoughts back.
Do not hate yourself for having them. It’s an apocalypse. These things happen.
Back to regular horror movie season
In other news, I’ve tried to go through the usual motions of horror movie season, but like I say, COVID-19 made everything caddywumpus this year. I do have the canonical list of hidden horror gems I’ve encountered over the years. You will of course find many, many more horror films I’ve reviewed over the years at 366Weird.
One problem I’m seeing is that Netflix’s horror line-up kinda sucks. What happened with Netflix is that it first got popular as the web’s streaming service. Then all the studios who sub-let to Netflix saw how much money they were making and decided to pull it all back.
Now almost nobody will lease a movie to Netflix because every two-bit studio is convinced they can launch their own streaming channel even if they have just two films to their name. So we’re going to have to deal with the Balkanized streaming landscape just like we did when cable came out, until all these companies come to their senses.
In the meantime, Shudder has the horror movie market cornered, to nobody’s surprise, so I’m thinking of turning to them. We’re right back to having to pick our channels one at a time just like cable and satellite. Thanks a lot.
Until next time, keep your Mad Max boots by the door and your garlic cloves on your necklace, the ride ain’t over yet!
