Connect with us

News

‘The Forest’ Update Introduces Craftable Bow and Arrows

Published

on

A new content update has gone live for developer Endnight Games’ open world survival horror game The Forest, and it brings with it a new way to defend yourself against the game’s indigenous cannibals with the addition of a craftable bow and arrow. This update might not be as exciting as, say, procedural breasts, but the bevy of fixes it brings with it are welcome. It’s been a while since I last played The Forest — I may need to remedy that soon.

Version 0.05 Changelog:

New craftable item added: Bow (Stick plus cloth plus rope)
New craftable item added : Arrows (Stick plus 5 feathers)
New craftable item added: Fire torch (Cloth plus Stick)
New craftable item added : Medicine (Aloe plant plus Marigold flower)
Fixed staircase built scale being different from ghost scale
Fixed hunting shelter built scale being different from ghost scale
Fixed enemies not playing correct death animation
Enemies no longer get stuck jumping down from trees
Enemies will dodge around close trees more often, less instances of getting stuck on trunks
Fixed(removed) weirdly shaped weeds
Fixed rusty axe duplication bug
Fixed yellow axe not appearing in inventory
Lower sound effect tree breaking notification
Fixed bug where you could throw multiple tennis balls at once
Added support for more resolutions
Parry no longer affects burn/poison and other damage to player
Carry log animation added to player
Improved enemy collision detection with built walls and structures
Enemy vision is now properly blocked by player built structures
‘check bloody arms’ animation can be cancelled by other actions more reliably
Fixed enemies sometimes getting stuck and walking backwards forever
New 3d models added, first class passengers * 2
Fixed rope not appearing in inventory when collected
Added new female texture and hair variations
Fixed glitch in cave where players could fall through ground
New cave prop added : Mining hat with light
Fixed some pathfinding issues in animals and mutants
Fixed lit fires blocking enemy vision causing weird AI behaviour
Enemies should set themselves on fire less often
Fixed an issue where enemies would get stuck on spot while climbing trees
Fixed counter attacks of cannibals sometimes not registering
Fixed missing turtles on main beach
Fixed enemies getting stuck in trees
Fixed enemies freezing upright after being shot with flare gun or burnt
Batteries can now be used to restore charge in flashlight and lowered torch battery drain speed to half
Stick holder now holds 20 sticks!
New cannibal village art added: Blankets, drying racks
Rabbits and lizards will navigate around trees and rocks better
Distorted mutants can now be killed with flare gun/fire
Improved bloom
Adaptive photographic tonemapper added
Fires now drain slightly faster
Improved sunlight settings
Motion blur now takes into account HDR
Improved foliage lighting
Improved water shader, more refraction as depth increases, more accurate sky reflections
Raised player fire damage amount
Rope pick ups added to some cannibal villages
Pedometer now shows outside temperature
Logs should no longer fall through rocks
Fixed plane seats vanishing on loading save game
Made feathers brighter, made batteries brighter (easier to see in inventory)
You can now carry 3 dead rabbits and 3 dead lizards (instead of 1 each)
Fixed plane crash crazy motion blur bug
Marigold and AloeVera now get stored in backpack when picked up
Texture resolution option added to options menu (start options menu only) Try lowering this to improve memory on lower ram systems and improve performance on lower end cards.
Fixed issues with taking bombs from inventory
Birds now spawn feathers when killed
Day counter now starts at 0 from when you first wake up in plane
Improved cave items/layout and lighting
Fixed lizards & birds vanishing when close to edge of screen
Rainbow will be forced off now if night time
Tweaked rain chance settings
Enemies will now push past bloody table instead of getting stuck
Fixed dead bodies spawning too many chunks when chopped up
Fixed some missing sound effects, improved night time sound effects

I spent some time with The Forest back in June, you can watch me try my best to survive against the game’s cannibals and assorted seemingly Silent Hill inspired creatures in the video below.

YTSub

Gamer, writer, terrible dancer, longtime toast enthusiast. Legend has it Adam was born with a controller in one hand and the Kraken's left eye in the other. Legends are often wrong.

News

Spring 2024 Horror Preview: 12 Horror Movies You Don’t Want to Miss

Published

on

Abigail trailer
Pictured: 'Abigail'

We are now one full month into Spring 2024, which kicked off on Tuesday, March 19 and comes to an end with the start of Summer on Thursday, June 20. This year’s summer movie season has a whole bunch of exciting horror highlights, including A Quiet Place: Day One, MaXXXine, and Alien: Romulus, but let’s hold that particular thought until June rolls around.

We’re here today to talk about Spring 2024 and the many horrors we still have left before the weather gets warmer and we find ourselves in the heat of one hell of a spooky summer.

Here are 12 horror movies you don’t want to miss in Spring 2024!


Sting trailer movie spider creature feature

STING – April 12

Two words: SPIDER HORROR. Writer/Director Kiah Roache-Turner (Wyrmwood) hopes to induce eight-legged terror with his brand new horror movie Sting, only in theaters April 12.

Of particular note, Sting features practical spider effects from 5-time Academy Award Winner Weta Workshop, with the spider in this one inspired by H.R. Giger’s Xenomorph!

In Sting, “One cold, stormy night in New York City, a mysterious object falls from the sky and smashes through the window of a rundown apartment building. It is an egg, and from this egg emerges a strange little spider. The creature is discovered by Charlotte, a rebellious 12-year-old girl obsessed with comic books. Keeping it as a secret pet, she names it Sting.

“But as Charlotte’s fascination with Sting increases, so does its size. Growing at a monstrous rate, Sting’s appetite for blood becomes insatiable.”


Spring 2024 horror blackout

BLACKOUT – APRIL 12

Indie darling Larry Fessenden is back with new horror movie Blackout this Spring, Fessenden’s third movie – following Habit and Depraved – to put his own spin on classic monsters.

While Habit was centered on vampires and Depraved was a fresh take on Frankenstein’s Monster, Larry Fessenden’s Blackout is the filmmaker’s contribution to werewolf cinema.

The film follows Charley, an artist whose drinking binges blur with his sneaking suspicion that he might be a werewolf. He distances himself from those he loves and sinks deeper into solitude, his flashes of memory of his nighttime grisly acts manifested through his artwork.


Arcadian images Nicolas cage

ARCADIAN – APRIL 12

If Nicolas Cage is covered in blood, you better believe we’re going to be watching. Cage gets his own A Quiet Place with Arcadian, a new creature feature coming to theaters April 12.

In Arcadian, which also comes to Shudder later this year, “After a catastrophic event depopulates the world, a father (Nicolas Cage) and his two sons must survive their dystopian environment while being threatened by mysterious creatures that emerge at night.”

Jaeden Martell (IT 2017) also stars in the post apocalyptic monster movie.


Abigail Overlook Film Festival 2024 - gory horror Abigail set visit

ABIGAIL – APRIL 19

If you’re bummed about Melissa Barrera being fired from the Scream franchise, you’ll definitely want to get out to your local theater this month to support Abigail, the new VAMPIRE BALLERINA horror movie from Scream and Scream VI directors Radio Silence.

Barrera stars alongside fellow horror favorite Kathryn Newton (Freaky) in Abigail, which is actually the latest horror movie in Universal’s relaunched Universal Monsters Universe.

In the film, “After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.”


Late Night with the Devil trailer

LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL – APRIL 19

One of the most talked about horror movies of Spring 2024 has been the Halloween 1977-set Late Night With the Devil, which has been playing in theaters since its premiere on March 22.

Late Night with the Devil will begin streaming at home on April 19, 2024, less than one month after arriving in theaters. Shudder will be the exclusive streaming home of the movie.

David Dastmalchian (Dune, The Suicide Squad) stars as the host of a late-night talk show that descends into a nightmare in Late Night with the Devil, set on Halloween 1977.

In the found footage-style film that captures a period aesthetic, “A live television broadcast in 1977 goes horribly wrong, unleashing evil into the nation’s living rooms.”


Infested Shudder

INFESTED – APRIL 26

Spring 2024 is all about SPIDERS – sorry, arachnophobes! – with the previously mentioned Sting being followed by the French creature feature Infested (Vermines) later this month.

What’s particularly exciting about Infested is that its director, Sébastien Vaniček, has been hired to direct the next installment in the Evil Dead film franchise, so this will be our first taste of what Vaniček is capable of within the genre. And the buzz for this one is strong.

In his review out of Fantastic Fest last year, for starters, Bloody Disgusting’s own critic Trace Thurman raved that Infested is “one of the best spider attack movies in years.”

In the upcoming horror film, “Fascinated by exotic animals, Kaleb finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, turning the whole building into a dreadful web trap.”


Spring 2024 horror cronenberg

HUMANE – APRIL 26

The daughter of horror master David Cronenberg, Caitlin Cronenberg is making her own mark in the genre filmmaking space with IFC Films’ Humane, coming to theaters this month.

The film is described as “a dystopian satire taking place over a single day, months after a global ecological collapse has forced world leaders to reduce the earth’s population.”

The wild premise? 20% of the world’s population must VOLUNTEER TO DIE!

“In a wealthy enclave, a recently retired newsman has invited his grown children to dinner to announce his intentions to enlist in the nation’s new euthanasia program. But when the father’s plan goes horribly awry, tensions flare and chaos erupts among his children.”


I Saw the TV Glow trailer

I SAW THE TV GLOW – MAY 3

Fresh off the haunting and singularly creepy indie We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, Jane Schoenbrun is back with A24‘s I Saw the TV Glow, releasing only in theaters this May.

Meagan Navarro wrote in her Sundance review for BD, “I Saw the TV Glow offers a layered and authentic portrait of identity, wrapped in ’90s nostalgia and surreal imagery that embeds itself deep into your psyche.” Meagan continues, “Schoenbrun delivers a singular vision of arthouse horror that entrances for its fevered dream style and insanely cool imagery.”

In A24’s latest, “Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious TV show — a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.”


Tarot horror movie

TAROT – MAY 3

Originally titled Horrorscope, a much better title if you’re asking me, Screen Gems returns to the big screen with studio horror movie Tarot this Spring, a Tarot-card themed spookshow.

When a group of friends recklessly violates the sacred rule of Tarot readings – never use someone else’s deck – they unknowingly unleash an unspeakable evil trapped within the cursed cards in the upcoming Screen Gems horror movie Tarot. One by one, they come face to face with fate and end up in a race against death to escape the future foretold in their readings.

The hook for this one? Artist Trevor Henderson designed the film’s eight monsters!


The Strangers Chapter 2

THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 1 – MAY 17

Bryan Bertino’s 2008 home invasion classic The Strangers spawns a brand new reboot trilogy this year, with first film The Strangers: Chapter 1 kicking things off in theaters on May 17.

The Strangers: Chapter 2 is expected to follow in Fall 2024.

Madelaine Petsch is the lead of the new reboot trilogy, playing a character who drives cross-country with her longtime boyfriend to begin a new life in the Pacific Northwest.

When their car breaks down in Venus, Oregon, they’re forced to spend the night in a secluded Airbnb, where they are terrorized from dusk till dawn by three masked strangers.


In A Violent Nature Review

IN A VIOLENT NATURE – MAY 31

Slasher fans who have been hungry for a new Friday the 13th movie won’t want to miss In a Violent Nature, which plays out like a Friday movie… entirely from Jason’s perspective!

IFC Films will release In a Violent Nature exclusively in theaters on May 31.

In the film, “When a locket is removed from a collapsed fire tower in the woods that entombs the rotting corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by a horrific 60-year old crime, his body is resurrected and becomes hellbent on retrieving it. The undead golem hones in on the group of vacationing teens responsible for the theft and proceeds to methodically slaughter them one by one in his mission to get it back – along with anyone in his way.”

Meagan Navarro wrote in her Sundance review for Bloody Disgusting, “In a Violent Nature may offer slasher thrills and a delightfully gory rampage across the wilderness, but the approach captures the carnage through ambient realism. It results in a fascinating arthouse horror experiment that plays more like a minimalist slice-of-life feature with a grim twist.”


Spring 2024 horror watchers

THE WATCHERS – JUNE 14

M. Night Shyamalan returns with the new thriller Trap this coming August, but the road to that film’s release will be paved by the feature debut of his daughter, Ishana Night Shyamalan.

Ishana Night directed The Watchers, in theaters from WB/New Line on June 14.

The film follows Mina, a 28-year-old artist, who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. When Mina finds shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night.


Which Spring 2024 horror movies are YOU most looking forward to?

Continue Reading