Instead of wasting time explaining my recent hiatus from doing B-Movie reviews due to my work schedule, personal issues, etc., let's jump right into this.

I found this little gem on Netflix a couple of nights ago, while bored and flipping through the "Recently Added" movie section looking for something to watch. My only complaint is that I didn't find this before Thanksgiving, as those of you who follow my Twitter know that I was looking for a good Thanksgiving horror movie, and was unable to think of one.

Luckily, ThanksKilling helps to fill that niche for Thanksgiving slasher flicks that's painfully empty. Right from the start of this movie, you get an immediate feel for the silly, gory, delightfully vulgar mood the creators were aiming for as we watch a topless pilgrim running through the woods, with the camera constantly switching from her scared face to her bouncing boobs. She trips and falls, and we're treated to the first appearance of the killer turkey who will be stalking his victims throughout the movie, as he yells, "NICE TITS, BITCH!", and proceeds to hack her up with an axe. Why is a turkey from 500 years ago speaking with a Jersey accent? How is he able to pick up and swing an axe? Who knows? Who cares? It's funny. That's the only important thing about movies like this.

The movie starts of like just about every other B-slasher flick, introducing us to our cannon fodder college students: the nerd, the slut, the quarterback, the fat redneck, and the "good girl". While on their way to their respective homes for Thanksgiving vacation, their car breaks down, and they decide to camp out in the woods, as stupid horror movie stereotypes are known to do. As in every other predictable B-horror film, the nerd character starts telling stories of an old legend around the campfire, and gets brushed off before one of the characters goes off on their own to discover that the legend is true. From here on out, we're treated to more foul-mouthed turkey kills and goofy humor. It's predictable, but at the same time, it's a lot of fun to watch, because the movie doesn't take itself too seriously. There's plenty of self-referential humor, sight gags, and cheesy gore effects to enjoy here.

 For those of you who are reading my B-movie reviews for the first time, every movie I review is available for instant streaming on Netflix, and this one is no exception. You can watch it on your PC, Mac, Xbox 360, PS3, TiVo, or Netflix-enabled Blu-ray player or TV. Just visit the "Watch Now" link below to add it to your instant queue, or play it immediately from your PC or Mac.

Watch "ThanksKilling" Now!

Ugh, I'm such a slacker. I've been so busy with work and personal matters that I forgot to write an article last week, not to mention that I'm writing this one late on a Friday. This week's pick goes back to the roots, the type of movies I wrote about when I first started this article. That's right, we're doing another Troma flick: Decampitated.

If you're a regular reader and you don't already know this, I should smack you, but Troma movies can be pretty polarizing. You either love them, or you hate them. While this wasn't directly produced by Troma, it fits in well with the movies they distribute, thanks to having the usual goofball sense of humor along with hilariously graphic violence. The main difference here is that these extremely silly characters seem to be able to take a lot more punishment than your usual campsite cannon fodder.

Just when you think someone has taken more damage than they should, it gets turned on its head and they take even more. One of my favorite gags, the Severed Head Hand Puppet makes an appearance, but even though I've seen many movies do this gag, I think this is the first one I've seen where the character that was decapitated uses THEIR OWN HEAD as a hand puppet to talk to their other friends that are getting mowed down in the woods.

As you can see from the trailer, Decampitated has plenty of graphic violence, sight gags, and cheesy acting to make it a fun B-movie to watch with some friends and a few beers. They knew what they were making, and it's obvious they had a lot of fun doing it. Some of my favorite movies are the ones that are self-aware and know not to take themselves too seriously. Do yourself a favor, take a cue from me, crack open a beer, fire up Netflix, and in the immortal words of Troma president Lloyd Kaufman...

Let's Watch!

The King of Fighters. Just the title brings back many memories of my teenage years. Hanging out in the arcades, dropping quarters into all the machines, most of which were fighting games. Street Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Virtua Fighter, and one of my favorites, a staple at any arcade: a multi-slot Neo Geo MVS cabinet. They usually had at least two games in them. One "casual" game like Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move, and at least one "hardcore" game, such as Metal Slug, or one of the dozens of fighting games the Neo Geo was known for. Samurai Shodown, World Heroes, Fatal Fury, Aggressors of Dark Kombat, Art of Fighting, the list goes on.

Then in August of 1994, SNK decided to drop a bomb on arcades, known as The King of Fighters '94. At the time, the concept seemed unreal. A 3-on-3 team-based crossover fighting game with characters from Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Ikari Warriors, and Psycho Soldier? SOLD. Everybody wanted to throw down to see who would win in a fight between Terry Bogard and Ryo Sakazaki, or Joe Higashi and Robert Garcia. While it didn't seem to snag the mainstream popularity of games like Street Fighter II or Mortal Kombat, SNK definitely had a hit on its hands, and one that hardcore fighting fans couldn't pass up.

Having said this, how does the 12th iteration in 15 years hold up? Read on to find out.

The short story: It kicks ass. However, that's not to say the game is without its faults. Some fans of the older KoF games may be disappointed by the (relatively) small character roster, weighing in at 22 characters. While this may not seem like much when you consider the roster size of other games, it definitely pales in comparison to older KoF games like King of Fighters 2002, with its whopping 66 character roster.

King of Fighters fans may also be disappointed by the mysterious disappearance of fan favorite characters like Mai Shiranui. While I can't blame them for their disappointment, the game still plays really well without them. I wish I knew why they decided to cut the playable character roster down so much. Hopefully it isn't to nickel-and-dime us to death with downloadable content that should have been on the disc in the first place. (*cough* CAPCOM *cough*)

Anyway, enough about that for now, let's dig into the game. As far as the graphics are concerned, the game looks amazing. I've seen a lot of complaining on gaming blogs and forums about the art style, but you should immediately disregard these statements, as they're generally made by people who have no clue what the hell they're talking about. They whine because it doesn't look like BlazBlue or Street Fighter IV. If you want games that look like that, go play those games instead, and keep it quiet, the grown-ups are talking. For those of us whose gaming tenure didn't start with Grand Theft Auto, the action is very nice to look at, still using the same sprite-based graphics we love, only completely re-drawn in high-resolution, with a higher framerate. Does it look pixelated sometimes? Yes, but THEY'RE SPRITES. That's how they're supposed to look, and I love the attention to detail and smooth animation. You can tell they put a lot of work into the game.

If you watched the video I posted a while back, interviewing the KOFXII art staff, you'll see that they spent a lot of time drawing each frame of animation in this game by hand. No cel-shading or 2xSai filters here, folks. Just good old-fashioned sprite work, like only SNK can do. Fans of the old-school SNK fighters should feel right at home here.

Now, when I say you should feel right at home, I'm not referring to just the graphical style. After all, what good are pretty graphics if the game below them plays like crap? Thankfully this isn't the case with KOFXII. The game plays just as smooth as its previous iterations, with a few new features added, such as the Deadlock system, which will cause simultaneous attacks from both fighters to be cancelled out. It doesn't sound like much, but it can lead to some interesting counterattacks and possible changes of direction in the fight if timed right. Along with this new feature, the Critical Counter system has the potential to make a fight turn a complete 180° if performed correctly by striking with a heavy attack without hitting any directions on the joystick at point-blank range while your health meter is flashing green.

I can't really speak for the default gamepad setup on the Xbox 360, because I don't play fighting games with the standard 360 controller, but while playing with my Hori Fighting Stick EX2, the controls are very snappy and responsive as would be expected from a game like this. According to a friend who helped me with reviewing this game on the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360's controls are more responsive, and the game appears to run much smoother on the 360 as well. As I haven't yet verified this myself, I will probably be updating this review later as I play through the game on my PS3.

With those differences aside, one area where the game unfortunately appears to suffer is during online play, with lag causing interruptions and severed connections occasionally. However, Ignition has assured us that they are working on this, as well as the glitch where Raiden can become "handcuffed" to Elizabeth while performing his special (similar to the Nakoruru handcuff in Samurai Shodown, or the Guile handcuff in Street Fighter II), and will be releasing a patch for both consoles soon. When they roll out this patch, it will hopefully be a non-issue. For me, and people like me, this probably won't be an issue anyway, since I prefer to play against an opponent that's sitting in my living room.

To summarize, there are definitely worse ways you could spend your money than King of Fighters XII. Some people might not be keen on spending $55 on a fighting game with no story or end boss, but those people are mostly the ones who don't remember when new SNK games would rise up into the $300 range. If you're looking for a great technical fighting game with gorgeous hand-drawn sprites, King of Fighters XII is an excellent competitor in the current-gen fighting game arena. (I refuse to call the 360 and PS3 "next-gen" consoles, since this generation started 4 years ago)