The nearly 100-foot-high statue of Christ the Redeemer stands atop Corcovado mountain, spreading its arms wide, as if to embrace the entire city. The sun beats down on Rio’s beaches—beaches so filled with sunbathers and tourists that it can be hard to see any sand. Millions of tourists flock to the city every year, and for some, it might seem as though this corner of Brazil is paradise. A place untouched by the worries of the world.

Ruben and Eunice Paiva know better.

Ruben was a left-leaning Brazilian congressman in the early 1960s. But when the government was toppled by a military coup in 1964, Ruben was forced out and into self-imposed exile. He and his family—wife Eunice and five kids—returned five years later, but the military dictatorship is in control. And by 1970, that dictatorship feels increasingly under pressure: Terrorists are kidnapping foreign ambassadors and exchanging them for the release of political prisoners. The country’s rulers want to stamp out this insurgency now. Left-leaning protestors, journalists and educators are increasingly scrutinized.

Oh, and one-time politicians, too.

They come for Ruben on a gloriously sunny day—a holiday, when the Paiva family might’ve well gone to the beach. Several men walk into the house, armed and prepared for trouble. They tell Ruben they’d like him to give a “deposition.” As Ruben dresses for the trip, his daughter, Nalu, asks if she could borrow one of his shirts.

“Do I have a choice, Nalu?” he says with a smile, while a stranger with a barely concealed gun looks on. “And where’s my kiss?”

Nalu, clueless about the room’s looming peril, gives him one. And she asks why he’s putting on a tie.

“I’m just helping these gentlemen,” Ruben say. “I’ll be back soon.”

But he wasn’t back. Not that day, or that night, or the next day. That deceptively mundane goodbye launched the family into a nightmare one can barely contemplate.

The sun seems to always shine on Rio. But on Jan. 20, 1971, the Paiva family entered into a dark, uncertain night.

The post I’m Still Here appeared first on Plugged In.

That’s pretty much his entire job: dying. As part of an intrepid expedition to colonize the icy planet Niflheim, Mickey is the colony’s sole expendable. His mind has been downloaded into a hefty techno-brick. And once his current body expires, the scientific team on Niflheim will just chug out a new one, using its handy-dandy organic 3D printer.

Mickey dies so that others might live. Or, occasionally, just for kicks.

Is this ethical? Heavens, no. Everyone admits that much. But Kenneth Marshall, a two-time failed senator on Earth and the colony leader on Niflheim, figures they might as well use the technology anyway. I mean, just the trip out to Niflheim was pretty dangerous, and who knows what terrors the planet itself might hold. A good, solid expendable will keep the rest of the colonists intact. As for Mickey, well, it’s just like the job title says: He’s expendable.

And so Mickey dies. Again and again and again. He’s died by radiation poisoning. By mysterious planetary disease. One time, he was shoved into the ship’s molten incinerator while he was still alive. Even if he survived the pathogen floating around in his bod, it was just easier for everyone involved—well, everyone but Mickey, I guess—to print out another one.

And honestly, the 17^th iteration was pretty much guaranteed to expire just like all the rest. He’d taken a tumble down a huge ice hole and found himself in the presence of Niflheim’s native residents: something that looks like a cross between a musk ox and a pillbug (and stands slightly bigger than a Range Rover) and all her many, many, many children.

Mickey assumes he’s a dead man—again. He’ll be quickly devoured by the mamma creeper (as they come to be known as) or slowly consumed by her offspring.

But instead, the creature drags Mickey out of the burrow and sends him on his way. And Mickey is a little offended.

“I’m perfectly good meat!” He shouts after the mamma creeper. “I taste fine!”

Meanwhile, back aboard the ship, Mickey 17 is presumed to be dead and eaten. And so they welcome Mickey 18 to the ship.

Won’t Mickey 17 be surprised when he gets back!

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Why?

Who knows? It’s the future. And in this future, there lives a powerful witch that seemingly everyone wants dead. But this witch, Gray Alys, lives on.

Part of her longevity is because of her magical ability to make eye contact and force anything—man, zombie or feral beast—to see what she wishes them to see. Her other saving grace is the requirement that she must grant any and every wish that someone asks of her.

“I refuse no one,” she will murmur when asked. And people always ask, even though her expression immediately conveys a bitter truth: wishes always lead to one cataclysmic disaster or another.

So, when the city’s Queen approaches with a request to gain the shapeshifting ability of a werewolf, Alys dutifully replies, “I refuse no one.”

But why would the Queen want such an ability? Who knows? And when the Queen’s captain and secret lover later asks that Alys fail in that request, Alys once again declares that she cannot refuse him.

Somehow Gray Alys is required to fulfill requests that even might oppose one another. While in a magic trance, she sees a man who will guide her to that resolution. He’s a large and gnarly gunslinger named Boyce.

This massive mercenary will lead her into the Lost Lands. They will find a werewolf there. And they must also keep one step ahead of the foul crusader-like churchmen that want Gray Alys’ skin.

Oh, and Alys isn’t aware (or is she?) that Boyce also happens to be one of the Queen’s many lovers. He might even be the sire of the child that’s newly growing in her womb.

Oh, what a twisted web this witch now clings to.

But it leads to a conclusion that Gray Alys cannot refuse. Why? Only she knows for sure.

The post In The Lost Lands appeared first on Plugged In.

She’d been born in Azerbaijan (then part of the U.S.S.R.). Her own two daughters were born there, too. Her husband, Ivan, works as a Soviet rocket scientist. She herself is a respected school administrator in Baku, Azerbaijan, and a proud member of the Communist Party.

But ethnically, she’s Armenian. And in the eyes of many, that makes her an outsider.

Nothing new there, either. She’d been used to the occasional side-eye, the derogatory remark, the infrequent burst of ethnic tension. As long as Moscow was in charge, those issues felt minor.

But in 1988, Moscow’s power wanes. The Soviet Union is fraying at its edges. And many former countries—or would-be countries—now strain at the seams, reaching for independence.

And in Azerbaijan, Violetta and her family don’t feel at home anymore—all because they’re Armenian.

Bricks shatter the windows of Armenian businesses. People carry signs promising death to Armenians. The school closes its doors to the Petrosyan girls—a sympathetic teacher telling Violetta that they’re simply not safe at the school anymore.

But it’s only when the shooting begins—executions of Armenians right in the streets—that the Petrosyans flee, running straight into Russia proper. There they hope for another chance at home.

But they find a cold welcome in Volvograd, Russia. Housing is dismal. Jobs are scarce—at least for Armenians. The only hint of friendliness they find is inside a ramshackle church, and that’s hardly a suitable refuge for the secular Petrosyans.

Sure, Violetta and Ivan have a place to stay in Volvograd. The apartment comes with walls, a roof—even heat sometimes. And if they need a bathroom, well, it’s just down the hall.

But a home? They’re still looking.

The post Between Borders appeared first on Plugged In.

He’s a hooded dude who’s been stalking loving couples on Valentine’s Day for the last few years. Then he butchers them (mid-hug, kiss or proposal) in the most brutally “romantic” ways: He might carve out their loving hearts with a machete. Or pin the lovebirds together with a razor-sharp cupid’s arrow. Or some other bloody atrocity.

That’s terrible and all. But frankly, Ally couldn’t care less.

While others are quivering on this hearts-and-flowers holiday, Ally has no fear of the killer in the least. You see, she just broke up with her ex-boyfriend. Then that louse instantly ran out and found someone else he could cuddle up with and plastered it all over his social media for crying out loud!

So, let’s just say that Ally is currently as stone-cold averse to all things lovey-dovey as she can be. If anything, she’s kinda thinking about the benefits of putting on a mask with cartoon hearts for eyes and doing a little beat-down on a few people herself.

Oh, and to top all that off, she just met this walking embodiment of a Hallmark card named Jay. He was brought in by her boss to prop up a failing advertising campaign that Ally had come up with. (Which kinda ticked Ally off, truth be told.)

Anyway, this guy just oozes “handsome” and “romantically sincere.” In fact, everything about Jay seems completely geared for some meet-cute rom-com scene. (Which makes Ally all the more angry.) And while she’s more than happy to turn her back on this gorgeous-looking lug, she has to meet him for a meal and discussions about the campaign. Argh!

But here’s the real issue.

From the outside-looking-in, the very pretty Ally and the strikingly handsome Jay make for a really adorbs couple. If you were an insane killer out scoping out a Valentine’s Day symbol to slaughter, this gorgeous couple might seem to be wearing the perfect heart-shaped bulls-eye.

Yup, I think it’s safe to say that Ally is having … a really bad Valentine’s Day!

The post Heart Eyes appeared first on Plugged In.

Grace is a misfit twin. She and her brother, Gilbert, lost their mother at birth. Grace’s mom was a malacologist, or, in Grace’s mind, a snail scientist. In a twisted sense of symmetry, Grace recounts how female snails must biologically die to successfully give birth.

From the moment her mother passes away, Grace has felt a connection to snails. In fact, apart from Gilbert, her pet snails are the only living things giving her life purpose.

Grace and Gilbert’s father, who had been an aspiring French street performer, sadly became a paraplegic due to a roadside car accident. He eventually passes away due to sleep apnea, which is a bitter example of Memoir of a Snail’s comedic tone.

Orphaned and separated from her brother in an unfortunate foster care decision, Grace ends up with a new set of parents more interested in joining a nudist colony than raising their foster daughter.

Moving through the badlands and suburbs of Australia, Grace ends up confined in her room, while Gilbert arrives at an apple farm that resembles a religious cult. Though they exist on separate sides of the Australian continent, Grace and Gilbert remain linked. Their story and hopeful reunion is recalled through future, older Grace’s narration, which is mainly focused on the cast of characters who wade in and out of her life.

Grace claims she’s an optimist—a perpetually glass half-full kind of girl. Yet as her glum disposition settles in, she becomes a hoarder, addicted to food, and reclusive to the point of sleeping entire weeks away with her snails and a local eccentric named Pinky as her only companions.

As Grace trudges through the doldrums of her life, she does her best to learn lessons from her snail friends. Admittedly, stop-motion animation provides an effective medium for the themes at play. Grace’s epiphanies arrive when she is patient, thoughtful, and measured. To face her life’s problems though, she’ll need to change who she is.

If only she could learn how to come out of her shell…

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That “saturation” part means Chris works with a maintenance crew that goes so far down in the ocean’s dangerous depths—sometimes as deep as 1000 feet down to maintain miles of fuel pipes that run along the ocean floor—that he must be treated with pressurized gas before each lengthy dive.

Of course, it’s the dangerous side of things that make Morag consistently worry. Does he really have to risk his life repeatedly in the crushing depths just to make a living? Couldn’t he find something on the dry, sunny surface that he could do?

Chris kisses his bride-to-be and laughs off her fears. “It’s just like going into outer space, except in the opposite direction,” he chuckles.

After a beat, she replies “Is that supposed to reassure me?”

Let’s face it, Morag has a point.

Even though it’s all becoming second nature to young Chris—after all, he works with an experienced, dedicated crew—accidents do happen. And sometimes storms at sea create unpredictable problems for the ship far above on the water’s surface.

Sometimes the thick umbilical cables that connect the divers to oxygen and diving bell communications can tangle or even snap. Sometimes the power goes out, and the ocean floor becomes a pit of ink-black nothingness.

And sometimes all of those things happen at once, leaving a stranded diver with nothing but minutes of oxygen in his diving suit’s emergency back-up.

That’s when an entire crew must do all they can to fight the ocean, fight the storms, fight the failures, and desperately try to save an endangered crewmate.

In this case, that endangered soul is a guy named Chris.

The post Last Breath appeared first on Plugged In.

Hey, lots of kids are like that, right? But in Ne Zha’s case, the results can be … bad.

See, Ne Zha is a demon, and not just any run-of-the-mill, dime-a-dozen Chinese demon, either. He’s part and product of the Demon Orb, and as such he’s incredibly powerful and destructive. Why, if left to his own demonic nature, he just might be so destructive as to threaten heaven and earth themselves. So the orb was slated for destruction by the Supreme Lord, Yuanshi Tianzun. And what the Supreme Lord says, the Supreme Lord does.

But through a series of adventures and surprising relationships (as chronicled in 2019’s Ne Zha), Ne Zha saved his parents and his hometown of Chentang Pass. And thanks to help from his enemy-turned-friend, Ao Bing (a reincarnation of something called the Spirit Pearl and the son of a very important dragon), Ne Zha even staved off the Supreme Lord’s destructive curse. The only downside? He and Ao Bing lost their corporeal bodies. Bummer.

But as Ne Zha 2 opens, good news! Master Taiyi Zhenren uses (and exhausts) his sacred lotus to regenerate both Ne Zha and Ao Bing.

Bad news. Chentang Pass is soon under threat again: Ao Guang, Ao Bing’s very important dragon father, believes his son died in the last movie, so he unleashes a few other dragon rulers from their lava-y locale, which are ushered into the fray by the demonic Shen Gongbao. Before Ne Zha and Ao Bing can truly get their bodies back, they must defend the town—and Ao Bing’s corporeal form is quickly destroyed. (Naturally, Ao Guang feels just terrible about this strange turn of events.)

But more good news! Ao Bing’s spirit doesn’t need to dissipate forever! Taiyi says that Ne Zha can host the spirit of Ao Bing for seven days. During that time, if Ne Zha can pass three trials and become one of the immortals, he can claim a potion that will restore the sacred lotus and, thus, give Ao Bing another shot at having a real-life body again.

But more bad news. Demons aren’t allowed to perform these trials. In fact, the trials are all about fighting demons—something that gods and immortals love to do. And if anyone detects Ne Zha’s true nature during these trials—inescapable if he fights as Ne Zha—he’ll certainly get booted out of heaven.

The only solution: Ao Bing’s spirit must take over Ne Zha’s body during these critical trials. And he can only do that if Ne Zha knocks himself out somehow.

Follow all that?

Well, in truth, we learn all of that within, like, the first 15 minutes of the movie, and then things get much more confusing. But in short, Ne Zha—the spirit of Ao Bing in tow—and Taiyi mount a flying pig and fly to heaven to embark on a series of spectacular adventures. And perhaps they’ll right a few long-festering wrongs along the way, too.

The post Ne Zha 2 appeared first on Plugged In.

Many soldiers have found healing from those unseen wounds in therapy. But that was never Zoe’s style. In fact, she told her best friend and fellow soldier, Merit, that if she ever caught Zoe in therapy once they got home, Merit had permission to kill her.

Unfortunately, it’s not really up to Zoe anymore, because well … she’s dead.

Merit knows this to be true, but it hasn’t stopped Zoe from living rent-free in her head. Sometimes Merit likes having this version of Zoe around—like when they’re singing along to their favorite songs in the car. But other times, it’s not such a jam fest.

Zoe likes to be the center of Merit’s attention, discouraging her from making new friends or even answering her mom’s phone calls. In fact, Zoe is so distracting that Merit accidentally dropped a forklift full of television sets onto a coworker, nearly killing the guy. The courts charged her with criminal negligence, but they also recognized that Merit was suffering from a form of PTSD. So, rather than being fined and imprisoned, Merit’s been court-ordered to attend group therapy for veterans.

But Merit can’t quite bring herself to talk about Zoe in therapy. Part of that is Zoe’s fault: After all, if Zoe didn’t like the idea of therapy when she was alive, she certainly doesn’t support it now that’s she dead.

However, the larger part of Merit’s reluctance comes from the simple fact that she doesn’t want to move on. And she knows that once she opens up about how she’s seeing her dead friend Zoe, she might lose Zoe forever.

The post My Dead Friend Zoe appeared first on Plugged In.

He’s got money. Connections. A secluded winter home in the forests of Maine. How exactly he came into possession of those things is a bit of a mystery. The type of mystery that you probably wouldn’t want to know the answers to.

Yes, Vincent has a questionable past. But, in his mind, he’s also got a certain future. He adores his wife, Sandy, 20 years his junior. His stepson, DJ, is an intelligent and considerate young man who will soon head off to college. They are a happy, healthy and wholesome family.

That is, until Vincent’s first family shows up. His biological son Rocco arrives with his very pregnant girlfriend, Marina; and his chaotic mother, Ruth, Vincent’s ex-wife. Rocco claims he only stopped by to celebrate the New Year as a family, and to tell Vincent that the older man was going to be a grandfather. But, as Vincent suspects, there’s more to it than that.

Vincent’s right. And that’s when his carefully manicured life starts to get messy.

See, Rocco killed a man. And not just any man. He killed the only son of mobster “Lefty” Hannigan. Sure, Lefty’s son attacked Marina, and Rocco only killed him to save her. But Lefty doesn’t care. He wants revenge. And he and his righthand hitman are hot on Rocco’s trail.

Rocco and Marina need to disappear. Sandy and DJ need to be protected. And Ruth—well, Ruth—she’s enough trouble on her own. So, what will Vincent do for family?

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