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zaph1337 · 3 years

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Monster Hunter Rating 37: Red Khezu, the Charging Wyvern

TRIGGER WARNING: BLOOD

I don’t normally talk about the monster’s qualities in the introduction, but I have to here to make sure that no one’s gonna get hurt because of this. This is a monster that’s veiny and blood red, and combined with Khezu’s design, it’s pretty disturbing. The weapons, however, are probably worse, as they have a cracked, fleshy aesthetic that looks like it could start bleeding at any moment, and I’ll put the trigger warning a second time once we get to talking about them in case it slips someone’s mind. Might seem overkill, but with a situation like this, you can’t be too careful, which is also why I’m gonna put this review under a “Read More” so anyone who doesn’t want to see it doesn’t get an eyeful while trying to scroll past it. Now, let’s talk about Red Khezu proper, shall we?

(How it appears in Monster Hunter Freedom 1)

(How it appears in Monster Hunter 4)

Appearance: See what I mean? This thing’s made to look like it had its skin ripped off, which is not a look you want to have unless your intention is to scar someone or their children for life. The MHF1 render conveys the skinned appearance better than the MH4 one, in my opinion, because it’s a deep red, like the kind you’d see in gore in PlayStation era games. The MH4 render reminds me more of a particularly red worm or lamprey...well, until you get to the body. Then it looks like someone plucked a chicken and painted it red. It probably looks more visceral in-game.

I think I prefer the standard Khezu design, to be honest. The pale complexion combined with everything else gives me Silent Hill vibes, and even though I haven’t played any of the games, I’ve watched videos on them, and I appreciate all they’ve done for the horror genre. Red Khezu, on the other hand, doesn’t give me that same impression, and I don’t know of any horror series’ I’m interested in where such a vibrant red on a fleshy-looking monster is part of the aesthetic. Still, it does its job well. 7/10.

Behavior/Lore: So, here’s something interesting: Red Khezu aren’t a subspecies. They’re what Khezu are supposed to be like; the Khezu everyone views as being “normal�� are actually albinos who likely only got more populous than the red ones because they spend most of their time in caves, where anything that would want them dead likely wouldn’t be relying on visual cues to hunt anyways. That said, both types of Khezu leave caves to eat non-cave dwelling monsters and, surprisingly, mushrooms, which Red Khezu have been seen feeding on in the Swamp region. Unfortunately for them, being so fatty means that once they leave their cave, they put themselves at risk, ‘cause a lot of monsters want to eat them, including the Rath pair.

For some reason, Red Khezu are much more aggressive than the albino variety, and they even have increased muscle mass, which allows them to not only visit cold regions (which white Khezu can already do), but even stay in them during the winter months (which white Khezu can’t do). I don’t know why albino Khezu aren’t like this, ‘cause I can’t see how albinism would affect your muscle growth and temperament, but I don’t make the monsters, I just critique them.

I’m really glad that this is more interesting than “Khezu+.” The fact that Red Khezu aren’t a true subspecies is a neat idea, and considering that the Ecology page on the common Khezu doesn’t mention any omnivorous tendencies, it’s likely that Red Khezu even have a different diet than their pale cousins, which is something that I don’t think the previous G monsters had. While making them more aggressive than albino Khezu is to be expected at this point, it doesn’t take away from anything, so I’m not going to gripe about it. When you combine all of this with the qualities they likely share with albino Khezu, you get an interesting counterpart for what was already an interesting monster. 8/10.

Abilities: If you thought that keeping warm was the main benefit of having more muscle mass than a common Khezu, I have to question your educational history; Red Khezu are physically stronger than the albino variety, and their electrical organs are superior as well. Not only are their electric attacks stronger, they can also use electricity to incapacitate prey in ways common Khezu can’t. Also, their skin seems to be very elastic, as Red Khezu can stretch their necks out much farther than their pale brethren can. I think more needs to be stretchier than just the skin, but whatever. As a final note, for some reason they’re immune to fire, but this apparently comes at the cost of being weak to water.

Red Khezu do what I wish more subspecies’ do, which is take the basic abilities of their weaker forms and mix them up, not just make them more powerful. The new ways they can manipulate electricity and the extended reach of their more elastic necks likely make battles with them stand out more than the ones you have with some other G monsters. 7/10.

Equipment: Like I said at the beginning, TRIGGER WARNING FOR BLOOD. These weapons look just plain nasty, which, while potentially being part of their appeal to some people, will likely make others very queasy or worse. I’ll start with the least disgusting one, the Hunting Horn called the Blood Horn:

“Red Hunting Horn made from wrapped Red Khezu hide. Its color is very unsettling...” The color is unsettling? Not the fact that it literally has a mouth? Okay, in all fairness, the color of the wraps makes it more gruesome than the Khezu Horn, which just looks like it’s covered in bandages; these look like bandages that were soaked in something, and they were probably white before they were applied. Make of that little observation what you will. Now, here’s where things start getting nasty--this Long Sword from MHO:

...I can’t say I know what that implement is, but I do know that the Red Khezu skin is wrapped around it in a very unsettling way; until I saw the little bit of metal that was exposed at the sword’s base, I thought that those spikes were independently attached to the flesh instead of being the teeth of a full blade. And speaking of unsettling, the sheathe looks like it’s bleeding. That comparison to cracked flesh I drew earlier makes more sense now, don’t it? I’ve got one more weapon to show you guys, and it’s probably the nastiest one of the bunch: the Red Khezu Sword and Shield from MHO. If you’re already uncomfortable after looking at the above weapons, you might wanna scroll past this:

The reasons I find this the most gruesome of the weapons I’ve shown are A: the “sword” is a surgeon’s saw, which adds to the whole “twisted hospital” vibe that Silent Hill likes to use, and B: the shield literally has the Red Khezu’s “face” stretched over it, and the mouth is...what are those black things holding the mouth shut? They’re not sewing lines, ‘cause they’re way too big. Wait, the way the two on the left are angled, it looks like they’re 3D and not flat--are those things made of metal, like the shield? ‘Cause there are a few implications for that, and they’re all unpleasant. Moving on to the armor, the only renders the wiki had are the men’s sets from MHO. Here’s the Blademaster set:

This isn’t as vibrant of a red as Red Khezu normally are, but it does look like raw meat or exposed flesh, so that’s...cool? The fact that there’s nothing obscuring or darkening the face like in other games with Khezu armor makes it look kind of silly, though; it’s like a fleshy raincoat, which is equally parts disgusting and hard to take seriously. As for the Gunner set, it’s very different from the Khezu R Armor I showed off in the Khezu review:

To be fair, this does look a lot like the normal Khezu Gunner armor, so expecting it to look like the R Gunner armor is silly. There are a couple of neat things here--the arm guard has a spine embedded in it, and the right arm has a glove with claws (or at least long nails)--but for the most part this doesn’t stand out too much to me. It does look like someone cooked the meat for a few minutes, though, so it’s probably not violating any health codes.

Honestly, I prefer the standard Khezu equipment to this, but that’s mostly because there’s much more of it than Red Khezu equipment. Plus, outside of the ones from MHO, the weapons the devs recolored for Red Khezu don’t really look that unnerving. The red’s a bit too vibrant, so it doesn’t really fit the filthy hospital aesthetic that made Khezu weapons so eerie, and the armor looks gross, sure, but that’s all it has. Still, the MHO weapons are their own kind of disturbing, but the fact that the majority of Red Khezu weapons are in a game that most people don’t even consider a real MH game is depressing. 6/10.

Final Thoughts and Tally: After sifting through so many monsters that did so little, it’s nice to get something that stands out like this. Don’t get me wrong, I still prefer normal Khezu over red ones, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like Red Khezu at all; I just think that the albino ones have more going for them. 7/10.

#tw: blood #Monster Hunter #Monster Hunter rating #zaph1337

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funnythingshere0-blog · 6 years

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The best comedies on Amazon Prime

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The best comedies on Amazon Prime

It’s not easy finding the best comedies on Amazon Prime. The service’s search function needs serious work, and keeping track of what’s available can be a futile effort for casual viewers. Movies often come and go without notice or jump from one platform to the other. The days of adding movies to your queue or My List and being able to work through them at your own pace are gone. To make matters worse, with every streaming outlet producing and distributing their own original content, the selection of non-affiliated content is dwindling.

But fear not: We’ve tracked down all of the good funny movies on Amazon Prime, and we’re going to update this list monthly, so you can count on it. Here are the best comedy movies on Amazon Prime you can watch right now.

The best comedies on Amazon Prime

1) Superbad

The first time I watched Superbad I laughed as often and as hard as I have laughed at any movie in theaters. A decade and numerous viewings later, the comedy is showing its age, but it’s still funny, if you’re into Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s work. But the aspect of the film that endures is the friendship between Evan and Seth (Michael Cera and Jonah Hill). That’s the key ingredient to the success of these kinds of movies. If you buy the friendship, then everything else is gravy. It’s crazy to think that ten years after its release the core cast of Superbad would have a three Academy Awards nominations for acting under its belt (and one win courtesy of Emma Stone), but Superbad has more going for it than most high school comedies.

Movieclips Classic Trailers

2) Landline

Jenny Slate and Gillian Robespierre, star and director of the acclaimed Obvious Child, respectively, reteam on Landline, a ‘90s-set family drama. It’s about sisters who uncover their father’s affair and the effects of that news coming to light. It’s a plotline straight out of the indie movie starter pack, but it’s elevated by strong work from the cast. Abby Quinn makes a noteworthy debut playing Slate’s sister, and Edie Falco, John Turturro, Finn Wittrock, and Mark Duplass are all terrific.

3) Mystery Team

The simple pitch of 2009’s Mystery Team is The Wire meets Encyclopedia Brown. It stars Donald Glover, Dominic Dierkes, and D.C. Pierson (who also wrote the script) as three high school seniors who continue the mystery-solving business they started as kids. The Mystery Team gets their biggest case to date when a young girl hires them to figure out who killed her parents. The barrage of jokes is relentless, and the hit rate is high. The cast is packed with tons of now-familiar faces (Aubrey Plaza, Ellie Kemper, Kay Cannon, Bobby Moynihan, and Matt Walsh all pop up) and energetic directing by Dan Eckman.

4) The Foot Fist Way

The Foot Fist Way is the rawest, purest form of Danny McBride. He plays a brash tae kwon do instructor, Ben Simmons, who shares his considerable lack of skills with kids. Fists and foul-mouthed barbs fly as Simmons trains the kids for a tournament. Simmons is a rough draft version of Kenny Powers, and it’s worth watching to see McBride and co-writer and director Jody Hill before they blew up. If you’re a fan of McBride’s style, you owe it to yourself to catch up with The Foot Fist Way.

YouTube Movies

5) The Big Sick

The real-life relationship between Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon provides the basis for this charming romantic comedy. An Amazon original movie, The Big Sick deals with the dynamic of the couple’s interracial relationship and how it affects their families, his family more than hers as well as Gordon’s hospital stay and medically induced coma. Nanjiani and Gordon wrote the script, with Nanjiani playing himself and Zoe Kazan playing Gordon. The movie is an honest, hilarious reminder that our differences are the best things about us. The Big Sick is one of 2017’s best films.

Amazon Studios/YouTube

6) The Little Hours

If you like your comedies on the dirty side, then you need to add The Little Hours to the top of your queue. From writer-director Jeff Baena, The Little Hours follows a man on the run who takes refuge in a convent and sets the nuns a tizzy. He must maintain his cover as a deaf man while also managing the nuns’ sexual advances. The cast is packed with all your favorites and recognizable faces from TV (Alison Brie, Dave Franco, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, and Adam Pally). Basically, if you like any of the 2010’s best TV comedies, The Little Hours is almost custom made for you.

7) Kingpin

The Farrelly brothers’ Kingpin stands alongside The Big Lebowski as one of the preeminent bowling movies of the ‘90s. Over the years, Kingpin’s reputation has grown substantially, and it’s now viewed as one of the decade’s best comedies. Any movie with Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray is worth your time, and Kingpin will reward your investment. The Farrelly brothers lost their touch over years, but Kingpin stands alongside Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary as their best work.

8) His Girl Friday

This pitch-perfect screwball comedy captures the classic Hollywood era at its finest. Cary Grant stars as a hard-nosed New York City newspaper editor trying to win back his ex-wife and star investigative reporter, played by Rosalind Russell, and still get the paper out the door. Based on the Ben Hecht/Charles MacArthur play The Front Page, 1940’s His Girl Friday takes place almost entirely in a newsroom, which gives the movie a certain intensity, while Howard Hawks (the titan behind The Big Sleep, Red River, and Bringing Up Baby, another Grant essential) ensures the dialogue and laughs come faster than print deadlines. —Austin Powell

YouTube/Movieclips

9) Election

Here’s the thing about Election: You need to watch it at least twice, preferably several years apart. How you feel about the sad sack high school teacher played by Matthew Broderick, the ambitious overachiever student played by Reese Witherspoon, and their escalating feud might change depending on how old you are. But even if you find out you are always Team Broderick or always Team Witherspoon, it’s worth re-watching just for the laughs, which, in classic Alexander Payne style, are born from familiar humiliation and recognizable human folly.

Movieclips Classic Trailers/YouTube

10) Daddy’s Home

Will Ferrell plays a buttoned-up step-dad competing for the affection of his stepkids with the kids’ father, played by Mark Wahlberg. The game of one-upmanship grows increasingly silly, as those kinds of things are wont to do, and Ferrell and Wahlberg sell the jokes as best they can. Daddy’s Home isn’t the funniest movie you’ll see with Wahlberg or Ferrell, but it gets the job done.

Movieclips Trailers/YouTube

11) What We Do in the Shadows

This is one of the funniest movies of the Amazon Prime and it deserves a much larger fanbase than the small and passionate one it has now. Co-written and co-directed by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, this New Zealand set romp follows the daily lives of a quartet of vampires. Shot mockumentary style, the movie is packed to the fangs with so many jokes that it makes repeat viewings a necessity. Whether hunting for prey, fighting with werewolves, or reuniting with old loves, Waititi and Clement have crafted a pitch-perfect comedy that riffs on well-known mythology and newly created lore with equal cleverness.

Madman Films/YouTube

12) Barbershop: The Next Cut

The third entry in Ice Cube’s Barbershop series might be its best. The movie, like the barbershop itself, has a looseness to it that makes you want to linger in the shop longer than you need to. The conversation is alternately fun and fierce. The ball-busting goes both ways, with everybody cracking wise and getting cracked on but always in a way that’s good-hearted. If that were all the movie had going, that would be enough for a fun time. But The Next Cut tackles larger issues, most notably the changing racial makeup and growing crime problems of Chicago. In a movie with the central idea of people hashing out the day-to-day of their lives, the thornier societal issues flow naturally out of the conversation, and the movie is consistently entertaining. The cast, including stalwarts Ice Cube, Cedric the Entertainer, Eve, Sean Patrick Thomas, Anthony Anderson, and newcomers Lamorne Morris, Nicki Minaj, and Common, have an easy chemistry and the film’s two hours just fly by.

JoBlow Movie Trailers/YouTube

13) Love & Friendship

Whit Stillman’s adaptation of Jane Eyre’s Lady stars Kate Beckinsale as a widow on a mission to find husbands who offer the most financial stability for her daughters. Love & Friendship is hilarious and refreshingly self-aware. The film earned a great deal of acclaim, with Beckinsale and Tom Bennett singled out amongst a strong cast. If you’re new to Stillman’s work, this is a great introduction.

Movieclips Trailers/YouTube

14) Paterson

Every day for bus driver Paterson (Adam Driver) is exactly the same, and every day is also sublimely unique. Making wonderful use of repetition and recurring imagery, indie legend Jim Jarmusch’s latest shows how beauty can be found everywhere, if only you bother to look. Anchored by Driver’s understated performance, Paterson is a celebration of the creative impulse, and its ability to impart mystery and import to even the most innocuous of things. —David Wharton

FilmTrailerZone/YouTube

15) Jeff Who Lives at Home

The hyper-prolific brothers Jay and Mark Duplass delivered one of their best films with this 2011 dramedy. Jeff (Jason Segel) is a slacker who spends a day with his brother Pat (Ed Helms). What starts out as a simple errand turns into the brothers sneaking around to see if Pat’s wife is having an affair. Along the way, the day turns out to be a major turning point in Jeff’s life. It’s not surprising that the Duplass brothers would find great, success in a movie centered on brothers.

16) Young Adult

Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody rekindled their Juno magic with the acerbic and darker Young Adult. Charlize Theron stars as Mavis, an author, who returns home after her divorce and sets out to win back her married ex. Mavis is a tough, compelling character, and Theron gives one of her best performances. Movies about characters struggling to grow up have become a cliché at this point, but Young Adult is sharp enough to offer an insightful and pretty funny approach.

17) Logan Lucky

Steven Soderbergh returned to feature films after his four-year hiatus with this NASCAR heist film. Toplined by a great cast (including Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Katie Holmes, Riley Keough, and Katherine Waterston), Logan Lucky channels the easy energy and breezy fun of Soderbergh’s Ocean’s films. The movie won’t blow you away with its originality, but when everyone is operating at this level, the joy becomes infectious.

18) Deadheads

This horror comedy movie about two self-aware zombies on a road trip delivers more laughs than scares. Deadheads wears its silliness like a badge of honor. It is relentlessly goofy, and its sense of fun is highly infectious. The road trip hits a bump when the guys realize they’re being chased by mysterious men. But even when the story shifts toward action, it never loses its sense of humor.

19) Dance Flick

If you need a funny movie and want something you can watch on autopilot, the Wayans family has you covered. Between cast and crew, no less than 11 Wayans family members combine to bring us 85 minutes of buffoonery. In the vein of Scary Movie (before the Wayans left the series), Dance Flick riffs off the slew of cheesy but awesome dance movies that flooded the market during the ‘00s.

20) The Replacements

The Replacements combines two of America’s favorite things, Keanu Reeves and football, and pairs them with the great Gene Hackman. When a strike hits pro football, amateur players are recruited to play until the strike ends. Reeves leads the replacement player squad as quarterback Shane Falco. No doubt Reeves’ prior fictional football experience with Johnny Utah played a role in Falco’s success. Even though the players in The Replacements may be scabs, the cast and laughs are all starting caliber.

21) The King of Comedy

Martin Scorsese’s movie about a mentally unstable man, Rupert Pupkin (Robert DeNiro), who dreams of being a famous comedian. Pupkin goes as far as kidnapping his idol Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis). The King of Comedy is still relevant today for its fame-obsessed protagonist’s at-all-costs mentality. There’s a sense of danger and sadness to Pupkin, and DeNiro threads the needle to make him a sympathetic character without sugarcoating anything. The King of Comedy isn’t as well-known as other Scorsese-DeNiro collaborations, but it is on par with Raging Bull and Goodfellas.

Pauleymack/YouTube

22) What If

Daniel Radcliffe’s post-Harry Potter movies have been all over the map in terms of quality, but they’ve all been interesting. What If stands out for being a low-key anti-romcom romcom. Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan star as the central duo. They’re happy being friends but have too much chemistry to stay that way forever. Radcliffe and Kazan make for an adorable pair, and their chemistry drives What If’s success.

23) The Lobster

Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos tells his satirical stories in such a deadpan, straight-faced way that it’s easy to (wrongfully) write him and his work off as detached nihilism. His style is an acquired taste, but if you’re willing to take the chance I find his films to be worth the investment. The Lobster is about a single man (a schlubby, sad-sack, terrific Colin Farrell) who is forced by the government to check in to a hotel, wherein he’ll have 45 days to find a mate or be turned into an animal of his choosing. The first half of the film takes down every aspect of modern-day courtship, while the second half shifts into something more optimistic and, dare I say, romantic. Farrell does some of his best work to date, and the rest of the cast (Rachel Weisz, John C. Reilly, Olivia Colman, and Lea Seydoux, among others) is uniformly excellent.

Movieclips Trailers/YouTube

24) Swiss Army Man

It’s a damn shame that so few people saw this movie in theaters. The premise is kitschy enough that most people dismissed it outright, but now that Swiss Army Man is streaming, hopefully it will find the audience it deserves. It’s about a man (Paul Dano) and the dead body he befriends (Daniel Radcliffe). The friendship that blossoms between the two is hilarious, charming, and far more emotionally involving than you expect. The story is laced with enough juvenile humor to appeal to the inner kid in everyone, but the ace in the hole is its highly affecting emotional drama. The movie is a celebration of life anchored by truly great performances from Dano and Radcliffe.

A24/YouTube

25) Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed

Scooby-Doo 2 is easily the best live-action Scooby-Doo. Monsters Unleashed is much more fun than the first movie. All of the key players are back as the gang saves Coolsville from monsters that have previously been unmasked.

YouTube Movies/YouTube

Still not sure what to watch on Amazon? Here are the best Amazon original series, the best documentaries on Amazon Prime, what’s new on Amazon, the best movies you can watch in stunning 4K Ultra HD, and the sexiest movies you can stream right now.

Editor’s note: This article is regularly updated for relevance.

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