Saturday, September 11, 2010

Tommy's Take on Slasher Flick Director's Cut

The reason I posted my old Slasher Flick review is because, essentially, I'm not going to retype the same thing I did a year and a half ago.

So...for the major rundown of the book and its rules, head on over to that link and dig in.

Slasher Flick Director's Cut isn't a second edition of the Slasher Flick RPG, so much as the ultimate Slasher Flick book, combining most of the optional rules from the Deleted Scenes and Special Features supplements with the original Slasher Flick rulebook...and now in full color.

A red, blood splatter trim has been added to the inside of the pages, where they connect at the spin...now, this WOULD just make up annoying dead space, except many of those optional rules now show up in the blood splatters as sidebars.  The sidebars are also used to convey asides to the Directors and Players.

What appears to be the entire Casting Call book has been included, which is about 100 premade tertiary characters (standard slasher stock characters) with  guidelines on making them primary characters instead...and I mean all the good ones are here, like Intrepid Security Guards, the various types of non-killer crazies you tend to see, stoners, mysterious drifters, etc.

Three new killers are included, one of whom borrows more than a bit from Michael Myers, one who is very "supernatural" in outlook and the other a good "twist" killer.  Each gets a full description and stats, as well as three plot hooks related to them for use into making your own "movies".

Another very helpful addition are three "miniflicks", essentially a set-up, location and killer that can be fleshed out into a full "movie", and a complete "film" called The Vault, involving a set of cloistered fallout shelters in the 80s.  One common complaint I heard when the original Slasher Flick came out was "It looks cool, but what do I DO with it?", and this should alleviate those concerns quite a bit.  There are two other full length adventures available, one set in a decrepit hotel and the other on an island getaway for more adventure fun.

Slasher Flick probably falls closer into the "story game" category than the "RPG" category, due to elements such as the players controlling multiple characters and so forth. Now, this doesn't matter a lick to me, but might be a big deal for some people. Its still a very cool game, and this package is pretty impressive in full color. If you bought Slasher Flick but not the supplements and enjoyed it, I would give this a solid recommendation. If you were interested in Slasher Flick but didn't buy it, then call it a strong recommendation. If you bought Slasher Flick and hated it, stay away...unless the reasons you hated it had to do with not being sure how to set up a "movie", or got too thrown by character creation: Since a "movie" is now included, as well as 100 or so pregenerated characters, you can jump right in.

Right now, you can still buy Slasher Flick Director's Cut with the two full length adventures in a bundle, and as I loved both adventures, I feel comfortable giving that a solid thumbs up.

One more thing I want to note, as it wasn't mentioned in the book and the author may have missed it altogether (a LOT of people did), is the TV series Harper's Island that ran for one season on CBS last year. It was marketed as a murder-mystery, but make no mistake: It is 13 episode, TV-friendly slasher film that is incredibly well done, and I HIGHLY recommend it, on par with the original Halloween.

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