Ruth Eames – Google

Beautifully shot, tremendous sound design and I think it captures the way we talk and tell stories about evil in our lives that we can't articulate. It also captures the way we half remember childhood traumas in a really visceral way without being gratuitous. The third act exposition was a bit much for me. After reading Perkin's reasons for doing this I can see why he did it, but it didn't work for me on first viewing.

The Wonder is a heart wrenching film about the importance of telling stories to make sense of the unimaginable. When the truth is too awful to put into words, when noone would be able to understand or believe your truth, all you have left is the telling of stories. It's also a valuable lesson in how much we need to be able to tell our truths and be heard to survive and thrive in any meaningful way. It's a slow, careful film with great performances at its heart and it repays those who give it the time and space to grow. I think this one will haunt me for a long time to come.

CGM is brilliant and portrays her terrifying symptoms in a way that build compassion and understanding - and then the film turns into a massive stigma fest against anyone with a serious mental health disorder: apparently the worst thing that could happen to anyone. A shame that the film draws such a cruel line between one kind of illness and another as it could have raised aweness of the main character's illness and struggle without stigmatizing others.

I've been looking for a game like this for ages! It's beautiful and stylish - love the 1980s vibe (the music adds a really nice feel if you want to leave it on - it isn't too intrusive). Spending time creeping about, exploring, listening and looking out for enemies is great fun and immersive, a lot of fast paced games lose all sense of 'being there', so this pace suits me perfectly. I love the stealth indicators but if you don't like them you can turn them off. The weather effects not only feel, sound and look great but they have an impact on gameplay, and visibility and the ability to hear your enemies really matters a lot. I like that you score points for evading a fight as well as winning a fight. It means you can choose how to handle different situations without feeling pushed one way or another. And so far I'm enjoying the crafting - doesn't feel like there are too many systems and there's enough stuff - not too much - to keep it interesting. I've only played solo so far but intend to play with other soon. As a solo experience it's fantastic, I think with friends it'll have a slightly different feel to it, making it a different but not necessarily better experience. I can see the merits of both. I'd say the game requires some patience and it's best played when you have a decent chunk of time (an hour or two) but it rewards. I'm the sort of person that never fast travels in games like Skyrim and Fallout, and this game is perfect for me. I spent the first hour, after my first bit of combat looking for other signs of life - birds? Over there, on those rocks! I looked through my newly acquired binoculars and my heart sank... just some tufts of grass... perhaps I'm the only flash and blood being still alive here? Then I heard some song birds at dawn, just a couple, in the distance, and I felt hopeful again! So far I'm enjoying the story a lot - and the enemies work as something to stalk and try and outsmart and can flip things quite quickly into making you scared and on the back foot. I've been playing for three hours now and have encountered four different types of enemy. I'm enjoying following the breadcrumbs of the plot quite a lot. I don't feel guilty for fighting and outsmarting these enemies (not like when I'm killing bears and other animals in games), or bad when I have to run away (they're cool enough that I feel respect for them when they get me on the back foot). They're beautifully designed and weak points are fun to discover. My only two issues would be that the menu felt clunky at first, but once I got used to it, in about 20 minutes, it started to feel a lot more intuitive and a few key binding tweaks made it work well for me. The other point is that you can't save at all. I find that irritating, but I guess tat's because it's a multiplayer game? All in all I love this game!

The set up is cool, and most of the punchlines land in the first twenty minutes or so, then, for me, it all falls apart. It seems to be more interested in telling you what it's influences are, and how funny it thinks it is, than actually being a coherent film in it's own right. I was shocked when I saw the runtime. It's short and it felt like a slog. Watch The Guest or You're Next instead if you want smart, referential, fun horror.