All Win, ZERO Fail.

Typically I LOATH remakes with a huge purple Barney passion. But from the beginning something just felt “RIGHT” about this production overall. I avoided pretty much all spoilers (which is unusual for me) and all of the juicy soap that was apparently going on during the production – I did not want to taint the experience I knew was to come with any negativity.

I went in expecting to be entertained. I was disappointed we didn’t get in to the Director’s Hall (has nice comfy high back seats and armrests that lift so you can scoot closer to that special someone) and apparently Showcase stopped carrying Sour Skittles – I was a bit annoyed. The trailers that ran were all a bit lackluster except the Iron Man 2 preview which I had already seen a billion times – it’s on my radar. Then the lights went down completely, the Universal logo rolled, and I became absorbed and damn nearly forgot about the rest of the world. Sour Skittles? Didn’t need em, didn’t even touch my drink the entire time.

What rolled on screen was simply and utterly the best damn horror movie I’ve seen in the last 20+ years. The atmosphere was perfect. The transformation sequences were breathtakingly astounding even for CGI effects (bite me Avatar). The acting was spot on and I was never once taken out of the moment. The way the carnage unfolded was awesome – blood, guts, heads, and limbs go flying without seeing much more than a hairy arm or tiny glimpse of the wolven fangs – the beast was FAST! DAMN FAST! And never once did I feel slighted by not seeing it until midway through the movie. And much like the original Alien, keeping the beast in the shadows just to the edge of your vision, getting maybe a tiny glimpse of it only after it was too late for the victim worked extraordinarily well. It definitely increased the tension and fear. Something I haven’t seen done right in ages.

I did notice maybe on two occasions that the music somewhat reminded me of Dracula. But I really didn’t pay much mind to it and hardly noticed the film even HAD a soundtrack because I was that absorbed into what was happening visually. And I for one think that’s a good thing. Music typically mentally cues me to when they’re gonna try and hit me with a cheap scare (and there are a couple of those) and that never once happened, I pretty much jumped in all the right spots they wanted me to jump. Being a bit jaded to horror tactics, that my friends hasn’t happened to me in a couple decades.

I left the theater and honestly felt like I underpaid for this movie. Maybe I’m a sucker for werewolves but it was that good. It was nice to see Hollywood and Universal go back their roots, away from the posh vampires and werewolves (I’m looking at you Twilight and New Moon). They dug deep pulling out a lot of classic film techniques yet giving it a gritty and violent 21st century touch. A perfect one-two punch.

Please Hollywood, give us more horror like this one!

Alrighty haunters and ghouls, the Halloween Countdown Widget is complete and available for free from the Android App Store. As you can see in the screenshot that I’ve taken a completely different approach from where I was going the first time. Battery tests show that updating every second did put a noticeable strain on the battery. I decided that if I was dump the seconds off the display that the really only important thing at that point is the number of days.

So I completely revisited the design and put together something that I feel is far better than what I had before. Something that’s not simply a knock of all the other countdowns out there (although I couldn’t find any Halloween related countdowns out there for Android). There’s a candle in the display that melts away a little each month the closer it gets to Halloween then starts over on November 1.  If I can find a way to animate the candle flame without impacting performance or battery life I will add it in a future version.

Also of note is the skull being interactive meaning that if you tap it you’ll get one of four random Halloween sound effects. This is where I met my biggest challenge being new to Android development. It took hours of research to find a working sample of how to implement a button on a widget, especially one that doesn’t open a separate app.

Overall I’m extremely pleased with the final outcome. My daughter loves touching the skull to make it play sounds (wait till she sees my next project muhahaha, I might never get my phone back).

The Halloween Countdown Widget is up on the Google Android App store and can be picked up freely there, just search for “Necropolis Labs” and you’ll find it. Or just hit the QR Code below using a barcode reader from your Android phone.

Enjoy and keep your eyes peeled for more Android goodies from Necropolis Labs.