FAVES OF 2020: BOOKS, FILMS, GAMES

2020 has been a rollercoaster. There’s the Major Big Things That Happened, but then there’s my personal struggles with losing my job and mental health issues. I recently went back to work so my semblance of a routine is slowly recovering, but I still feel out of sorts. (UPDATE: Things got worse and I lost my job again! C’est la vie! I’m doing okay though no worries)

Honestly, sometimes this year it was hard to do anything. I struggled a lot with motivation for obvious reasons but also this is just something I deal with in general. I have a terrible habit of starting things and not finishing them, whether it be books or games. The feeling of satisfaction from completing something is just not there sometimes. What’s the point, when the world is going to shit? I guess that worked in both directions for me. I felt like nothing mattered so why bother, but also nothing matters so why not? That’s partly the reason why I started writing in general.

At the beginning of the year, I set my 2020 goals as such: Be kinder to myself, enjoy the things I make, and watch more movies. While the first one is an ongoing, lifelong process, and the second is marred by the whole motivation thing I mentioned (as well at dumb brain), the movies goal though, was handily met. I made a Letterboxd account to help keep track of things and, as of writing this, have watched over 185 movies this year, the vast majority of them first time watches.

I’m not terribly picky when it comes to selecting movies to watch. I write down recommendations I see online and pick them at random, usually on a good day watching 3 movies. Often they are complete opposites of each other. For example, one day I watched Anguish (1987) then Paperhouse (1988) and later Corpse Mania (1981). A film within a film, a children’s nightmare adventure and a dude who is way to into dead bodies. Quite a contrast! My ratio of movies I enjoyed VS movies I hated was about 80/20, which is fairly good odds. I try not to “give up” on a movie and will see it all the way through, even if it’s doing nothing for me.

In the later half of the year, I started to really push myself to get things done. In addition to starting this blog, I sent out writing to various websites. I’m very happy to be working with 25YearsLater and their horror site, HorrorObsessive. While obviously having people read your writing is the general goal, I’ve been quite anxious about it but everyone has been kind and helpful and that is so comforting. I have several pieces I’m currently working on for Hobs (love this nickname, so cute), so keep an eye out on my twitter for those.

With all that said, I’m here to talk about my favourites of 2020! I’m not specifically going for things that released this year. Some may be older, some newer.

POSSESSOR UNCUT

Oh my god, from the second I saw this trailer I became obsessed. I had to see this movie. I had seen Brandon Cronenberg’s previous work, Antiviral a few years ago and enjoyed it, and like many horror fans I’m pretty fond of his dad’s work too. We have a poor track record in my small town for getting cool weird movies and I just knew it was NOT going to come here. But, I was thankfully proven wrong!

Incredibly stylish, with that distinct bright yellow, it was a treat to watch on the big screen. This is my favourite kind of horror: Kind of gross, kind of sexy, and vivid colours. Checked all the boxes for me. I was captivated watching it and couldn’t help but laugh when during a very pivotal scene, the woman a few rows ahead of us was on Facebook. How can you look away when that is happening on screen?? I’ll never know. Looking forward to revisiting this when I get my hands on the Blu-Ray. I also got this amazing shirt cuz, I had to.

WOUNDS: SIX STORIES FROM THE BORDER OF HELL

I have a habit of putting tons of ebooks on my wishlist, and then buying a bunch when they go on sale and forgetting about them. That was the case with Wounds. After completing my last read, I browsed through my library and selected this at random. I was utterly blown away and couldn’t help but read it in one sitting. The amount of world building in this is stunning. Hugely inspiring. If I could amount to even half of what Nathan Ballingrud accomplished here, I would die happy. I’m very interested in checking out the film based on one of the stories sometime.

YUPPIE PSYCHO: EXECUTIVE EDITION

I slept on Yuppie Psycho when it originally came out. My partner played it and told me it seemed up my alley. I have a terrible memory and kind of forgot about it until I saw the release for the Executive Edition, a buffed up version of the game with a few extra hours of content. So glad I did, because I loved every minute of this. The love and creativity put into it filled me with such joy! Fun, creepy creature designs, beautiful pixels…And snuff films?! Which are well shot and super eerie themselves. This is a GREAT game.

DAVE MADE A MAZE

What a completely unique and brilliant idea for a movie. I can imagine how fun this was to work on and basically get to play and create all day. The sets are incredible, the dedication to the idea, and the mockumentary style… oh my god. A visual treat the entire way through. I can’t wait to rewatch this again and again.

THE LESSON

Sci-Fi is such a great genre where you can cover so many different perspectives and narratives, and The Lesson demonstrates that beautifully. Dealing with human-alien relations in the Caribbean adds a unique setting with the history of slavery and race adding to that. The sadness and anger the characters feel is so well done. A wonderful debut novel, I cannot wait to see what Cadwell Turnbull does next.

DEATH STRANDING

Even though we got Death Stranding when it launched in late 2019, it took me a few months to get to it. I find it harder these days to get into a long form open world game, but I had recently beat The Witcher 3 and was feeling pretty good. Obviously we all know about the ridiculousness of Kojima’s games by now–the long cutscenes, the plot explained at the very end, weird gameplay decisions. It works so well here.

Going in, I felt overwhelmed by the amount of systems there were and how many things I had to remember while delivering packages, but once you get into the groove, it fucking rules. I was always thinking about several things at once and felt completely focused, which with my brain is hard. I didn’t want to STOP playing. Losing myself in the game world felt so easy.

Also the soundtrack is just incredible. So many soft, melancholy songs that calm me and fit the game perfectly. I don’t think I’ve listened to a soundtrack as much as I do this one. A lot of the time when going out in public, I get overwhelmed and stressed out. I have a playlist of songs that put me in a better headspace to deal with this, and basically the entire Death Stranding soundtrack is on there. Patience by Low Roar is my favourite, by the way.

DANIEL ISN’T REAL

It’s hard for me to put into words why I liked Daniel so much, and I do plan on writing about it eventually, but I guess it just hit me in a specific way at an important time. I watched it back in April, when things around the world started ramping up and my mental health was suffering. Something about Luke’s pain and dealing with the piece of shit that is Daniel was comforting to me? It quickly rose to one of my favourite movies, and I even named this blog after the book. It got me back into horror, fully, and helped me realize that I wanted to write.  So in many ways I have it to thank for where I am now.

To all my friends, family, and people in my little corner of the internet, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support thus far. I hope you will continue on this wild journey with me into the new year and beyond.

Love, Lor ※