Caleb Sherman
Bio
Twitch.tv streamer (Amnesia Duck), retro game enthusiast (don't ask me about Ataris though), lucky husband, and author.
Stories (39/0)
Common Man's View: 'The Den'
A potentially peaceful evening of anime viewing is interrupted by my wife's school chum who recommends we watch a movie about home invasion and webcam murders; the ensuing night reaffirms my desire not to communicate with strangers via 'Chat Roulette-esque' services and introduces a factor of viewing such material that surprises me as a viewer. The Den is actually a slightly older movie than I anticipated, when it was first described to me I anticipated it serving as an indie response to Unfriended: The Dark Web, but the movie was actually released in 2013. Zachary Donohue brings to life a chilling tale of anonymous web chat assaults that rivals and perhaps even surpasses more recent entries in the “found footage,” “webcam” style movies.
By Caleb Sherman6 years ago in Horror
- Top Story - July 2018
Looking Forward to Legendary 'Dune'Top Story - July 2018
Dune, Frank Herbert's 1965 science fiction masterpiece and the series that followed, should be the cinematic master series of the 21st century. In a cinema culture dominated by the continuing Star Wars series and the ever-present Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Expanded Universe, Herbert's Dune series stands with at least seven possible main series movies and even more prequels and expansions already written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Herbert's legends represent a much beloved yet mostly untapped potential pool of multimedia products. With Legendary Entertainment's acquisition of film rights, we may well stand to get the first successful film adaptation of this epic saga.
By Caleb Sherman6 years ago in Futurism
Monster on the Shelf (Pt. 1)
“That's just it, I can write outlines all day, but I can't put down the words for a whole story.” That was the conclusion I came to every night, after hours of working on little more than plot summaries and outlines for stories that I dreaded would never be written. Following this, or sometimes even prior to this, my wife would assure me that I could do it. The fact of the matter was, the closest I had ever come to completing anything like a finished novel had been when writing single segments of a story with people at work, and having them continue with the next segment. That had worked wondrously, so why couldn't I just do that alone?
By Caleb Sherman6 years ago in Horror
Gail Force Winds Pt. 1
My grandfather's old farm lands hadn't been touched in ten years now, not since his death left it untended. It seemed a fitting place to escape my troubles now. My childhood home was situated at the edge of some 98 acres of land the old man owned, God bless his foresight in purchasing the defunct hunting club's property. I had been paying taxes on said land for five years now, my mother defaulting on it herself, prison time didn't suit the taxpayer well.
By Caleb Sherman6 years ago in Horror
The Great Mars Escape
I awoke this morning from a terrific dream, or as terrific as one might have in my situation. I dreamt of escaping this God-forsaken farm, and joining the Resistance. The fields were no longer stretched out before me and I was free to forge my own path, and ultimately I would use that path to overthrow our Martian overlords.
By Caleb Sherman6 years ago in Futurism
Common Man's View: 'The Maus'
A symptom of just being a common man, sometimes I know exactly what I want to say about a movie, and sometimes I watch one of these Netflix Originals and I come out the other side having no idea what I've just watched, or what to say about that feeling of uncertainty.
By Caleb Sherman6 years ago in Horror
'Banjo-Kazooie' N64 Review
When I first looked myself in the mirror and said “I want to do a review series of games from 20 years ago,” my mind mostly set on a handful of old games: Spyro the dragon series (for which I own every installment), the PlayStation era Final Fantasy series (sadly, I missed the first of those games by a year) and Rare's Banjo duo were somewhere near the top of that list. So it was that I found Banjo-Kazooie in the short list of games released in June 1998, and I said, well, I know what part of the year I'm looking forward to.
By Caleb Sherman6 years ago in Gamers
'Star Wars Rebellion' PC Game Review
Amongst my many forays into strategy games and science-fiction universes, Star Wars has been a topic—much like Dune—which raises its head over and over again. Understandably so, Lucas Arts and Lucas Film produce such copious amounts of product that one might spend their lifetime enjoying and understanding it all. As such, it was with great pleasure that—when preparing to do a review series on games from 1998—I happened across Star Wars: Rebellion.
By Caleb Sherman6 years ago in Futurism
Common Man's View: 'Anon'
It's no secret that I love anime, and for the most part, I think live adaptations of anime are poorly executed. But, when I see a movie that seems to have taken cues from various anime, but did not attempt to replicate that anime, I am often enraptured. In fairness, Anon may not be inspired by PsychoPass or Ghost in the Shell at all, but I see similarities, and I think this movie does well to replicate the future tech expectations of such series fairly well, without going off the deep-end.
By Caleb Sherman6 years ago in Futurism
Common Man's View: 'Cargo'
A horror story told mostly in broad daylight and putting little to no emphasis on the horror aspect, Yolanda Ramke's Cargo is perhaps the finest “zombie” movie I've seen. Ever. In fairness, most of my experience with zombie movies are either cheesy comedy movies (see Aaah! Zombies!!) or cheesy action movies (see Resident Evil), so I went into this movie with low expectations. I've dabbled in the ridiculously popular The Walking Dead and watched passively-through the edges of my vision while playing video games—a few episodes of Fear the Walking Dead and frankly, they've never struck me as intensely enjoyable. Which makes this dramatic thriller (I referred to it as horror previously, because zombies are always horror to me, but technically it is labeled a thriller, which fits better I suppose) a unique eye-catcher for me.
By Caleb Sherman6 years ago in Horror
A Common Man's View: 'Hush'
Currently trending in Netflix's horror scene is a delightful little flick called Hush. Mike Flanagan's 2016 slasher has come across my path a few times over the past year, and I vehemently avoided it, like I do most shadows lurking in my oft-empty house. I wish I had done a bit more research before turning it away, I always know a Blumhouse film is sure to enthrall me.
By Caleb Sherman6 years ago in Horror
The Author Avoidant
I sit down in front of my computer with every intention of writing out another 3,000 words for this week. That's the goal—get my 3,000 words written and move on with life. I already have a draft of how the story goes, I know what the next steps are, but I can't take them. I sit here, staring at the screen for what feels like an hour and hardly even touch the keyboard, save to smash my fingers into keys producing gibberish.
By Caleb Sherman6 years ago in Journal