{"id":2586,"date":"2026-09-12T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/?p=2586"},"modified":"2026-09-11T18:30:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T18:30:26","slug":"movies-with-the-doomsayer-april-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/12\/movies-with-the-doomsayer-april-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Movies with the Doomsayer – April 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

HEAR YE!!!\u00a0 HEAR YE!!!\u00a0 Many of us, myself included, are coming down from the euphoric high of Project Hail Mary<\/em>.\u00a0 Will the month of April be able to deliver movies that will reach similar heights?\u00a0 Or was my announcement of a generational run in movies too premature?\u00a0 Come with me, as I recount all that I saw in April.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Good Luck, Have Fun, Don\u2019t Die<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh Gore Verbinski, please forgive me.\u00a0 My sole regret of the year is skipping out on his sci-fi romp Good Luck, Have Fun, Don\u2019t Die<\/em> in order to see Crime 101<\/em> instead.\u00a0 For those who missed this gem, just as I did, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don\u2019t Die<\/em> is a story about a time traveler from the future trying to find the correct combination of diner patrons who will give him the best chance of beating the latest sci-fi disaster that threatens the world.\u00a0 The premise seems complicated, but Sam Rockwell as The Man from the Future, is able to describe it all in an opening scene that makes his character seem both heroic and insane.\u00a0 The film then Intertwines back stories from various diner patrons that not only expand the characters, but also weave perfectly into the mysterious threat the Man from the Future is fighting. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don\u2019t Die<\/em> is not only one of the wackiest stories, but one of the best written sci-fi stories I’ve seen in a while.\u00a0 Don\u2019t make the same mistakes I made by writing off this film.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you don\u2019t laugh at any point in this movie, I will immediately drop you into a vat of dip, because you are clearly the villainous Judge Doom in disguise.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Fallout: Season Two<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MY LOYAL FOLLOWERS!!!\u00a0 THIS IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE ON WHY I AM WEARY OF TV SHOWS.\u00a0 So often do I find shows that feel like they are going in circles and just playing for time.\u00a0 It\u2019s a feeling I couldn\u2019t escape when watching Fallout: Season Two.\u00a0<\/em> As someone who was completely enthralled by the first season of Fallout<\/em>, I couldn\u2019t wait to see where Lucy and The Ghoul\u2019s journey took them.\u00a0 With them teasing that they would be venturing to New Vegas, my imagination began to run wild with possibilities.\u00a0 I\u2019ll confess, my followers, I haven\u2019t spent many hours within the Fallout<\/em> video games; however, I am familiar with the reputation that Fallout: New Vegas<\/em> holds.\u00a0 Especially when it comes to the game\u2019s driving antagonist force: Robert House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alas my excitement was quickly snuffed out as the series went on.\u00a0 Lucy is able to finally catch up to her father, but is unable to get any real answers from him.\u00a0 The Ghoul is still unable to reach his family and has to go on another trek to find them.\u00a0 Lastly, Mr. House is a complete and utter let down; he doesn\u2019t feel like the mastermind behind the curtain pulling the strings.\u00a0 He feels more like a sore loser, getting completely outmaneuvered by the Enclave: a villain that some Fallout fans might be excited for, but leave me completely unenthused to watch another faceless shadow government be the antagonizing force for Season 3.\u00a0 Feel free to pelt me with your stones and rotten fruit Fallout fans, but the Enclave feels like a clich\u00e9 rather than a true real villainous force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MY LOYAL FOLLOWERS!!!\u00a0 Lord knows I have certainly watched worse than Season 2 of Fallout<\/em>; the acting, directing, and set design is just as good as it was in Season 1.\u00a0 Yet, I can\u2019t give my time to a show that is content to circle the drain with its overarching story.\u00a0 If there is not some serious payoff within Season 3, I struggle to see myself returning to the world of Fallout<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Exit 8<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A CONFESSION FOR YOU, MY MOST LOYAL OF FOLLOWERS.\u00a0 I\u2019ve become fascinated by how adaptations are made in movies.\u00a0 When I hear a movie is based on a book or video game, I have been seeking out the original media just to see how drastically it differs from the movie.\u00a0 With the Exit 8<\/em> film coming up, I decided to give the video game a try and I thought it was just fine.\u00a0 The Exit 8 video game clearly helped pioneer the \u201cspot the anomaly\u201d style of horror games that game developers have flocked to.\u00a0 However, Exit 8<\/em> was clearly missing that melding of gameplay and story that I prefer.\u00a0 It basically has no story other than you are trying to reach the titular exit, and with that in mind, I was very curious how they could possibly make this into a film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The solution the filmmakers came up with was to create their own original tale.\u00a0 The movie Exit 8<\/em> begins with a young man receiving a call from his ex-girlfriend where she informs him that she is pregnant.\u00a0 Unsure if he should support her and the child, he wanders into a corridor labeled Exit 0, making him both physically and psychologically lost.\u00a0 He must properly navigate the hallway by spotting the anomalies while wrestling with what to do if he is ever able to escape the metaphorical maze.\u00a0 It\u2019s a perfect marriage of the original game\u2019s mechanics and a story the game was severely lacking.\u00a0 It even provides a quick but haunting backstory to the infamous man who just walks down the hallways.\u00a0 Much like Project Hail Mary<\/em>, Exit 8<\/em> is another film that is able to rise above the original source material to be a standout movie.\u00a0 Do not sleep on this film.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Hunting Matthew Nichols<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

HEAR YE!!!\u00a0 HEAR YE!!\u00a0 MY LOYAL FOLLOWERS, I\u2019ve been infected by the Strange Harvest<\/em> bug.\u00a0 I want \u2026 NO, I NEED MORE MOCKUMENTARY HORROR FILMS!!!\u00a0 Thankfully, my prayers have been answered with Hunting Matthew Nichols.<\/em>\u00a0 Unfortunately, as I entered the theater that quiet April night, the monkey paw of fate curled its fingers in cruel delight.\u00a0 Gather forth everyone, as I tell my tale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hunting Matthew Nichols<\/em> starts with the mockumentary revolving around Tara and her quest to find her brother Matthew.\u00a0 It goes into detail about how Matthew and his friend Jordan went into the Vancouver woods and never returned.\u00a0 Tara interviews the police and neighbors, giving us some insight into what might have happened that ill-fated day.\u00a0 The mockumentary portion of the film was beautifully executed, capturing that same uneasiness I got from Strange Harvest<\/em>.\u00a0 Unfortunately, with little evidence or clues, the police mark Matthew as a missing person and close the case.\u00a0 Thus, ending the mockumentary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From this point, Hunting Matthew Nichols<\/em> shifts to a more standard horror movie.\u00a0 Tara, convinced someone is withholding evidence from her and her brother’s missing person case has been unjustly closed.\u00a0 We then watch her go on a tirade throughout town, accusing anyone and everyone of trying to bury her brother.\u00a0 Once Tara is able to get her hands on her brother’s camcorder, we are able to bear witness to the demonic rituals Matthew and Jordan were performing.\u00a0 From there, we get a third act that plays out like a standard found footage film with Tara and her cameraman trying to contact Matthew from beyond the grave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the strong start with the mockumentary first act, later acts completely turned me off from the film.\u00a0 The second act in particular was giving me a case of secondhand embarrassment.\u00a0 I understand Tara wants nothing more than to find Matthew, but the scenes come off more like temper tantrums than genuine pleas for help.\u00a0 It really detached me from the story, making the stock standard found footage chases at the end, unable to really pull me back into the movie.\u00a0 Unlike Strange Harvest<\/em>, where every bit of it seems committed to its story, the second act of Hunting Matthew Nichols<\/em> really snapped me out of the immersion that it needed to keep me in.\u00a0 If you are desperate for some horror mockumentaries, this might sate your hunger, but frankly once was enough for me.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Faces of Death<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A HISTORY LESSON FOR ALL OF YOU, MY LOYAL FOLLOWERS!!!\u00a0 There is a 1978 film called Faces of Death<\/em>, it\u2019s a collection of footage showcasing deaths from a man eaten by an alligator, a man gunned down by a SWAT team, a monkey having his brains eaten, and many more.\u00a0 Naturally, this film was exiled to the deepest darkest corners of video rental stores in an attempt to hide its shock value from kids.\u00a0 Well in an attempt to out meta Scream<\/em>, Faces of Death<\/em> has been brought to life in an attempt to show how dangerous our \u201canything for a click\u201d mentality can be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our story begins with Margot, who gets a job as a content moderator at a social media site.\u00a0 She soon begins to see videos from one user looking to go viral by recreating many of the graphic scenes from the 1978 Face of Death<\/em> film.\u00a0 A quick confession for you, my loyalist of followers, I utterly despise how the more recent Scream<\/em> films have retconned the events of first few Scream<\/em> films into these fictional Stab<\/em> movies.\u00a0 It\u2019s an ouroboros of self-refacing that Wes Craven actively mocked in the first Scream<\/em>.\u00a0 All of this to say that Faces of Death\u2019s<\/em> new story about someone obsessively recreating scenes from the original is a better meta-narrative than modern day Scream<\/em> films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, I will confess to you, even though Face of Death<\/em>\u2019s meta-narrative is quite clever, I don\u2019t think the movie went as hard as it could have.\u00a0 Yes, our fame-chasing killer does a good job hamming it up for the audience, but for someone trying to go viral, I don\u2019t remember many of the kills throughout this movie.\u00a0 Yet, there are many Saw torture traps that are vividly burned into my mind; thinking of you Razor Box trap from Saw II<\/em>.\u00a0 It all gives Faces of Death<\/em> a student film quality that might turn people off from trying or giving it a second watch.\u00a0 I am certainly glad I watched it, but I\u2019d only dedicate my time to a second viewing if I could rent it for pennies or with no charge.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Normal<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GATHER FORTH, MY FOLLOWERS!!!\u00a0 AS I REGALE A TALE OF MY OWN VISION OF A MOVIE GETTING IN THE WAY.\u00a0 The movie in question today is Bob Odenkirk\u2019s Normal,<\/em> a film about a temporary sheriff named Ulysses Richardson, who discovers a dark secret lurking beneath the quiet town of Normal, Minnesota.\u00a0 Trailers made it look like Fargo<\/em> with a dash of Nobody<\/em>\u2019s bloody violence.\u00a0 Alas this was not the film Normal<\/em> gave me; the film is more of a dark comedy with some over the top violence.\u00a0 At one point, Ulysses starts throwing sticks of dynamite at his enemies like he\u2019s Bugs Bunny.\u00a0 I could see a world where I forgave the Looney Tunes-like violence if the initial mystery surrounding the town was compelling.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Normal<\/em> gives away the mystery of the town right at the start of the second act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film just feels like it\u2019s not capitalizing on any of its ideas.\u00a0 If you want to have a dark mystery, don\u2019t give it away half way through the movie.\u00a0 If you want cartoonish violence that Bugs would be proud of, go further than just sticks of dynamite.\u00a0 If you are truly aiming for a dark comedy, then write some truly comedic scenes; the scene that comes to mind is the one where they try to convince a gangster that nothing suspicious has happened in the town, but it just falls flat.\u00a0 All of these half-baked ideas just makes the film feel like second screen streaming fodder, which is ultimately the true shame here.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Cape Fear (1991)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GATHER FORTH O LOVER OF MOVIES, AND HEED MY WORDS.\u00a0 I want it to be clear that I am not disparaging the work Martin Scorsees or Robert de Niro put into this movie.\u00a0 In fact, I\u2019ll go so far as to say de Niro should have been given more roles in horror movies.\u00a0 Yet, as someone who has watched The Strangers, Hush,<\/em> and Scream,<\/em> it\u2019s hard to escape the feeling I have seen all the punches Cape Fear<\/em> is trying to pull.\u00a0 Scenes where de Niro\u2019s character Max Cady sneaks into the Bowden\u2019s house or onto their boat, gave me a feeling of deja vu.\u00a0 Frankly, the scene where Cady is talking with the young Danielle gave me more chills than anytime Cady attacked the Bowden family.\u00a0 I believe Cape Fear<\/em> serves as dipping of the toe into horror for those who don\u2019t frequent the genre, but horror fanatics, such as myself, might find it lacking.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Over Your Dead Body<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

HEAR YE!!!\u00a0 HEAR YE!!!\u00a0 With all the success the horror genre has received this year, it\u2019s easy to forget the red headed stepchild of the horror genre: horror comedy.\u00a0 Even as I stand before you all atop my soapbox, very few recent horror comedies come to mind.\u00a0 Well the wait is finally over as I present Over Your Dead Body;<\/em> a horror comedy about a married couple who both plot to kill each other at their vacation cabin.\u00a0 With our titular couple played by Jason Segel and Samara Weaving, they both bring a great energy to characters who are not only funny, but incredibly deep and well written.\u00a0 Over Your Dead Body<\/em> feels like a homemade apple pie; the premise isn’t groundbreaking, but with the high quality ingredients of great jokes, multidimensional characters, and stunts and gore effects from the great 87 North studio, you have yourself a pie that hits just right.\u00a0 I implore all of you, my followers, to watch this movie.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Pretty in Pink (1986)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MY LOYAL FOLLOWERS, sometimes you need to crack open the time capsule and watch a movie from previous decades.\u00a0 Today, the capsule presented to us is the coming-of-age Pretty in Pink<\/em>.\u00a0 The premise of the film revolves around our heroine Andie having to choose between dating her childhood sweetheart, Duckie, or the new mysterious kid, Jack.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the film\u2019s primary conflict, Andie choosing Duckie or Jack, is not really a conflict.\u00a0 Andie shows no real affection towards Duckie, to the point Duckie\u2019s efforts come off, as the kids say, quite cringe.\u00a0 If Duckie just took the hint that Andie only saw him as a friend, he could have easily found someone else by the end.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the awkward attempts to break through the friend zone,\u00a0 Pretty in Pink<\/em> does an adequate job highlighting growing up in the mid 80s.\u00a0 Alas, Pretty in Pink<\/em> fails to be one of my favorite coming-of-age films, simply due to the fact I have no nostalgia for that time period.\u00a0 I know with my long beard and raggedy clothes, some of you might think I come from that decade, but my nostalgia belongs to the early 90s era.\u00a0 So if I had to choose between watching a coming-of-age film, I probably would choose Mid 90s<\/em> over Pretty in Pink<\/em>.\u00a0 However, if you are someone longing for those days of long hair and wild clothes, then I imagine Pretty in Pink would satisfy that desire quite well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HEAR YE!!!\u00a0 HEAR YE!!!\u00a0 Many of us, myself included, are coming down from the euphoric high of Project Hail Mary.\u00a0 Will the month of April be able to deliver movies that will reach similar heights?\u00a0 Or was my announcement of a generational run in movies too premature?\u00a0 Come with me, as I recount all that… Continue reading Movies with the Doomsayer – April 2026<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-opinion","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2586"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2600,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2586\/revisions\/2600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}