On a budget this holiday season? You can have a Star Wars viewing party of your own by going outside on a clear night, picking two stars, and declaring they’re at war.

“Fuck ’em up,” you might whisper to your preferred star, quietly, so as not to annoy your neighbors.

1. Strawberry
2. Crumbs
3. Frosting and crumbs
4. 1d8 gold
5. Poison trap! (Strawberry-scented)
6. Nothing (metallic foil wrapper, no value)

Name(s): Face Fae | Face-Grabbers | “The New Relations”

Description (Appearance) The Face Fae look like normal humans. Which is part of the problem, as their facial features are entirely “borrowed” from humans who would otherwise have been happy continuing with the use of their own face.

Common behaviors Once a child comes to the point of adulthood, and has the misfortune of living near one of the seaside cavernous networks that Face Fae prefer to live in, they may awake one morning and find their face entirely missing. People living in affected areas tend to invest time and effort into developing and maintaining an artisanal mask-making industry, both for aesthetics and general mental/emotional well-being, as finding oneself without one’s face can be fairly off-putting. Those afflicted merely select a beautiful replacement mask and carry on with their new crafted face as best they can.

Most often encountered in: Near oceans, in the sort of caverns that can be carved out by aeons of tides and waves, such as those found by Green-Rolls-to-Ebon (which is where I made most of my study.)

To ensure a safe encounter (advice): One can wear a mask, firmly affixed in the back, during all waking and sleeping hours. The Face Fae, while deft enough to remove features without waking their sleeping victims, have not the dexterity to untangle knots. (If only one’s home could be latched safe with knots… but somehow they find a way in through cracks and gaps.) Should one encounter a Face Fae wearing one’s former features, it is considered polite and safest to treat them as a “relative,” greeted with a “Hullo, [Uncle/Auntie, etc.], to stay in their good graces, as they can be quite nasty in a scrap.

[shouting at the masked killer lurking in the woods, just out of sight]

Hey, y’know… you can only kill me ONCE! But, uh, with the hiding… all the hiding in the woods. That’s something a COWARD would do, and they, y’know– a THOUSAND deaths, is what they say. And is what I’m saying to you, I guess.

I’m WINNING, out of the two of us, is the point.

Dracula: Blood of Bunyan (1976) – This bicentennial bite-fest, filmed in the Philippines, relocates American folk hero Paul Bunyan to the jungle where he clashes with Dracula (Filipino film star Antonio Ocampo) and his paramilitary vampire strike force. Best Kill: As a swarm of bats, Dracula enters Babe the Blue Ox’s mouth, then pushes on Babe’s stomach (a practical effect built with blue stretchy latex), Dracula’s face and claws distending the belly before tearing out, dumping gallons of blood and Ocampo’s stunt double.

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Sn’otters (1986) – Equal parts a horror movie and a promotional vehicle to sell plastic figurines of otters in small tubs of slime, this movie’s ecological message was buried somewhere under eruptions of goo and slithery river mammal attacks. The plot was basic: Industrialists dump toxic goo in river, affected otters kill men in suits. Best Kill: CEO Hoyleman’s shareholder call is interrupted as a sn’otter slides down a conference table and into his mouth, back legs scrabbling. Then an obvious replacement Hoyleman head in close-up is inflated with slime until it erupts out the eyes, ears and mouth in jets.

Thank you for your $3 donation to Remake the Matrix but With Everyone’s Code Names Replaced With Ice Cream Flavors (Holiday Limited Edition Varieties).

We have now collected $3 towards our estimated $7.5 million budget! Wow! And it’s all thanks to backers like you!

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Goofs
Through most scenes in The Matrix, Keanu Reeves can be seen playing the role of “Neo,” when in fact this role should have been given to “Weird Al” Yankovic.

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When The Matrix came out, pill technology didn’t exist yet. Only 90s kids remember how medicines used to be delivered via medical staplers, or derma-toads, until scientists inspired by the Wachowskis learned how to squeeze medicine into tiny balls you could swallow.

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Did you know… ?
The character of Trinity in The Matrix was so named as a reference to two additional
planned sequels to the film that unfortunately were never made.

The character of Neo was named after knees (“Knee-oh.”) Attentive viewers will note the character has two, about mid-leg.

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Did you know… ?
Sending in a ticket stub for The Matrix as well as two soup can labels to a WB PO Box, fans of the hit film could order a secret third soundtrack on compact digital disc, which included rare tracks such as:

Three Goat DJs – “Roof Jumpin’ Criminals”
The Whoahs – “Whoah”
Eddie Sentient Program – “Rejected Love Theme for The Crow”
Ras Zombie – “Dragula Dub”

When I was a child, we troubled youths would be sent to “scared straight” programs where a maimed cowboy would tell us about The Horse That Eats Crime Like Sugar Cubes and that’s why their cowboy hat had to be glued on by nuns and it worked, by gum, I never broke another window and my dreams are drowning in angry equines.

Check out this game I co-wrote with Amalie McKee! It’s 2 games in 1 and I can guarantee it delivers: you’re gonna die in space!