u/BrokeFartFountain

I watched The Handmaiden first, then saw Chess of the Wind years later. The similarities between them were so specific that I genuinely wondered whether The Handmaiden might have been a remake or at least influenced by it.

They share similar storylines, themes involving gender and even some remarkably similar narrative turns. I do not want to go into detail because both films are better watched without knowing where they are going.

As far as I can tell, there is no documented connection between them. The Handmaiden was adapted from Sarah Waters’ novel Fingersmith, while Chess of the Wind was largely unavailable for decades.

Chess of the Wind was made in Iran in 1976 but was barely seen after its initial screenings. It was later banned following the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the original negatives were believed to have been lost or destroyed.

The director’s children began searching for the film decades later and the negatives were eventually discovered in a Tehran junk shop around 2014. The film was restored and reintroduced to international audiences in 2020.

It feels like two filmmakers from different countries and eras arrived at films with an uncanny amount in common, despite coming from completely different sources and circumstances.

Shohreh Aghdashloo is also in Chess of the Wind. It was her first film role.

The film is worth watching for the cinematography and soundtrack alone. It is visually stunning, and the restoration makes it hard to believe that it nearly disappeared completely.

If you’ve seen either or both, what are your thoughts?

I watched The Handmaiden first, then saw Chess of the Wind years later. The similarities between them were so specific that I genuinely wondered whether The Handmaiden might have been a remake or at least influenced by it.

They share similar storylines, themes involving gender and even some remarkably similar narrative turns. I do not want to go into detail because both films are better watched without knowing where they are going.

As far as I can tell, there is no documented connection between them. The Handmaiden was adapted from Sarah Waters’ novel Fingersmith, while Chess of the Wind was largely unavailable for decades. 

Chess of the Wind was made in Iran in 1976 but was barely seen after its initial screenings. It was later banned following the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the original negatives were believed to have been lost or destroyed.

The director’s children began searching for the film decades later and the negatives were eventually discovered in a Tehran junk shop around 2014. The film was restored and reintroduced to international audiences in 2020.

It feels like two filmmakers from different countries and eras arrived at films with an uncanny amount in common, despite coming from completely different sources and circumstances.

Shohreh Aghdashloo is also in Chess of the Wind. It was her first film role.

The film is worth watching for the cinematography and soundtrack alone. It is visually stunning, and the restoration makes it hard to believe that it nearly disappeared completely.

If you’ve seen either or both, what are your thoughts?

I really liked A House on the Bayou but it's rarely talked about and I have never seen anyone praising this movie lol

I thought it tapped into a niche type of horror by mixing home invasion, supernatural elements and a bit of Southern Gothic. It did the job pretty well imo. One thing I’ve started appreciating more over the years is when certain movies randomly pop back into my head. That kind of lasting impression matters to me. I still think about this movie.

Technically, it also could have had sequels. Not because of the obvious cliffhangers that so many movies and shows rely on nowadays. It’s just the nature of the premise that would make sequels work which is pretty rare to see. I doubt it will ever happen since the movie didn’t do well.

Have you seen it? What’s your take on it? What’s a movie you like that you feel similarly about?

It's a stormy night or something and someone comes to the door looking for shelter. I think they're two brothers or more. At the beginning, they're presented as shady, which they are since they robbed a bank or something.

The homeowner is a woman who's a nurse, I think. She has a teenage daughter and a wheelchair-bound husband who is unresponsive. At one point, she shows some sexual affection toward her husband and then looks up like she's posing for someone watching her.

The details after that are blurry but at one point, one of the robbers discovers that the woman has been keeping another woman captive on a hospital bed with all of her limbs amputated. There are screens in that room showing different views of the house.

I'm not sure about this part but I think it's some sort of revenge. I think the wheelchair-bound husband is actually the captive woman's husband and the captive woman accidentally killed the homeowner's daughter in a car accident or something. So, in exchange, she's being forced to watch the homeowner raise her daughter through the screens.

Thanks!!

This is related to a post I made about two years ago with the same title.

Basically, I said that I could listen to a song hundreds of times and still not remember the artist or song name anymore. I navigate music through album covers and playlists instead and I'm not sure if that's just getting older, streaming making me lazier, or both.

Despite having this realization years ago, the appeal of mood playlists has only increased for me. In a way, I've discovered so much through genres and time periods that I would often ignore by focusing on a specific atmosphere. But at the same time, I'll remember a song and then realize I can't find it again. I don't feel much connection to almost any artist. I don't know where they're from or anything about them. I would fall in love with an album but always discovering a sheer amount of new music would make me forget about it.

So, it has actually gotten exponentially worse for me over time. What about you?

My journey so far has been incredibly smooth sailing, especially for a woman. I hear horror stories all the time but from my first day as an intern, I was surrounded by supportive seniors and team leaders who guided and encouraged me when I had zero confidence in myself. I looked forward to the day when I would be in their shoes, doing the same thing for the next generation. For a while, I didn't even want that responsibility. I didn't feel ready. Unfortunately, my time as a senior coincided with the rise of vibe coding. My two experiences so far:

1. Not to pull the "back in my day" card, but... I worked in a large team with a clear hierarchical structure. The ratio was something like one senior developer for every three to five juniors. Now, most companies aren't hiring fresh graduates. All the smaller tasks that used to be assigned to them also have to be managed by me, with the help of AI to speed up the process.
2. When I do get a junior, they don't seem to want to learn anything from me. They just ask the AI. They only come to me as a last resort because they don't know how to debug at all. They don't seem to know the basics. I don't even think they see me as a senior. This could be due to my personality as well, since I tend to be quite soft and accommodating.

I am trying to accept this because I don't want to sound like a bitter old person saying, "Back in my day..." and being mad at the world, but it's hard. I worry about five to ten years down the road when I want to move into a more team lead position. What if I never develop the people management skills because I never really got to mentor anyone properly? And even if I do make it into those roles, I won't trust the new generation, who would be developers or senior developers by then, to code well. I don't want to code forever but with how things are going, it is starting to look like I might have to.

Anyone else dealing with this? Any advice?

Lately, “cozy game” seems to have become synonymous with simplicity. Cute visuals, low challenge, and mechanics you’ve seen a hundred times before. Don’t get me wrong, I play plenty of those games and enjoy them. The problem is that many of them don’t have much to offer after the first 5-10 hours.

When a cozy game does have depth, it often ends up being another Stardew Valley clone. At this point, seeing a farming game with a toolbar at the bottom, a set of tools, dungeon crawling, and relationship mechanics immediately kills my interest. The genre feels increasingly trapped by a single formula.

I think coziness is much more nuanced than that. Cozy isn’t a specific mechanic or genre. It’s a feeling that comes from being relaxed, comfortable, and in control. It’s the familiarity of settling into a routine you enjoy.

Challenge doesn’t automatically make a game less cozy. Difficulty only takes away from coziness when it’s not the type of challenge you enjoy. Likewise, dark themes, harsh worlds, not-so-cute visuals, and steep learning curves don’t automatically stop a game from being cozy.

Some of the coziest games I’ve played are actually quite dark and complex.

RimWorld is probably the game that most challenged my own idea of what a cozy game could be.

It’s basically The Sims on steroids. There’s familiarity, replayability, freedom, and an absurd amount of depth and customization. If combat stresses you out, you can turn the difficulty down. Personally, I enjoy it because it feels like a little tower defense game mixed into everything else.

What I find cozy is building a comfortable home in a grimdark world. Giving my colonists and their guests a little haven fills me with joy. My colonists get injured? I build them a nice hospital. They need food? I create farms and kitchens. I can cook, tailor clothes, craft furniture, brew alcohol, raise animals, and decorate living spaces.

It’s essentially every cozy management mechanic I enjoy rolled into one giant sandbox.

I get a lot of satisfaction from creating something warm, safe, and comfortable in a world that is anything but.

Another example is Crusader Kings III.

Unlike most grand strategy games where you primarily play as a country, CK3 is fundamentally about a dynasty. You play as a ruler, and when that ruler dies, you continue as their heir (simplified, but that’s the gist).

What makes it cozy for me is the sense of continuity. You’re managing a family, relationships, marriages, rivalries, succession plans, and generations of stories.

One of the biggest challenges in the game is succession. When your character dies, your lands can be divided among your children and completely unravel everything you’ve spent decades building. That sounds stressful on paper, but it never feels stressful to me.

Instead, it feels satisfying.

You’re constantly planning ahead, setting things up for the next generation, and trying to leave your dynasty in a better position than you found it. Watching those plans succeed is incredibly rewarding.

Even when things go wrong, it usually creates a more interesting story rather than feeling like a failure.

Oddly enough, I also find Rogue Trader cozy.

Warhammer 40K is about as far from the usual cozy game aesthetic as you can get. It’s a grimdark setting, and yet Rogue Trader feels surprisingly relaxing to me.

Part of it is that you’re a Rogue Trader, essentially a powerful noble with enormous authority and resources. You’re making major decisions, building up your retinue, managing relationships, and shaping entire worlds.

Warhammer also has this unique quality where everything is so ridiculously over-the-top that it almost becomes cartoonish. Everyone is impossibly powerful. Every weapon is absurd.

Because of that, I never feel particularly anxious about it.

The turn-based combat helps too. There’s no urgency. No pressure to react instantly. I can take as long as I want to think through a move, experiment, or even make mistakes.

Dustland Delivery is another one.

It’s a cheap indie game with permadeath, which sounds like the opposite of cozy. Yet I find it incredibly relaxing.

It’s essentially a trading game where you’re driving across a post-apocalyptic wasteland, buying low and selling high while gradually building your operation.

The repetition of planning routes, managing resources, and upgrading your truck into a freaking tank is weirdly comforting. It also has a ton of replayability, which is something I personally value in cozy games.

To be clear, I’m not against smaller, cute, one-and-done cozy games. I play plenty of them.

But I keep running into two issues:

1. The perception of cozy games has become too one-dimensional

People often talk about cozy games as if they’re defined by specific mechanics, visuals, or genres.

Farming. Fishing. Cute animals. Pastel colors. No combat. No failure.

I don’t think any of those things are inherently required.

2. Cozy games are becoming lazier

I think the initial rise of cozy games was about capturing the feeling of simple, comforting activities. That still requires creativity and strong game design.

But now I see a lot of games trying to sell coziness through aesthetics alone.

Then you look at the gameplay and there’s barely anything there.

Or it’s yet another farming game with the same toolbar at the bottom of the screen and the same gameplay loop you’ve already played dozens of times before.

Ultimately, I think what makes a game cozy is far more subjective than people give it credit for. What stresses one person out might be exactly what another person finds comforting. That’s why I don’t think cozy should be treated as a genre defined by cute visuals or specific mechanics or simplicity.

Not sure if anyone would be interested in this but I've been going through a lot of older horror and thriller films lately and wanted to recommend a few that I almost never see mentioned here. Feel free to recommend too or share your thoughts on these!

Dead of Night (1945)

An anthology that I jokingly described as the OG V/H/S while I was watching it lol

A man visits a house and becomes convinced that all of the guests there have appeared in his dreams before. One of them is a skeptical doctor and over the course of the evening each guest tells a story about a strange or supernatural experience they had.

What I found fascinating was how modern some of the stories felt. Several of the segments felt surprisingly ahead of their time.

One story reminded me of Final Destination. Another felt like a blueprint for Dead Silence. There was even a segment that could have passed for a Twilight Zone episode.

A lot of older horror movies are influential in hindsight but this is one of the few where you can actually see the DNA of later horror while you're watching it.

The Chess Game of the Wind (1976)

I did not know the history of this movie going in. I actually thought I had seen a remake of it before. Saying the movie's name is a huge spoiler so read at your own risk.>!The Handmaiden. !<If you've seen both movies, you'll probably understand why I made that comparison.

The similarities between the two movies are honestly striking. I assumed one must have inspired the other. As far as I can tell though, that appears to be a complete coincidence. The Chess Game of the Wind was barely screened when it was released and was later banned in Iran. For decades it was considered lost until the original negatives were discovered by the director's children and eventually restored.

It was also a pleasant surprise to see Shohreh Aghdashloo in an early role. As for the movie itself, everything is on point. The cinematography, the soundtrack, the atmosphere and the plot are all incredible. This is genuinely one of the best thriller movies I have ever seen.

Peeping Tom (1960)

It felt surprisingly modern. A huge part of that is Karlheinz Böhm's performance. There is something unsettling and off about him but it never feels theatrical or exaggerated. His character is also much more complex than I expected. I found myself weirdly liking him at times even though I absolutely shouldn't.

What really stood out to me though was the perspective. The movie is told from the perspective of the killer. Some of the murders are even shown through his camera which almost felt like a proto found footage movie.

Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)

A woman arrives at her daughter's nursery school only to discover that nobody remembers ever seeing the child. From there it turns into a really effective psychological mystery where you are constantly questioning what is actually going on.

The cinematography is beautiful and the whole movie has a very uneasy atmosphere. My biggest criticism is that it falls apart in the third act. The soundtrack also felt oddly out of place at times and did not always match the tone of the movie.

Even with those flaws I still think it is worth watching. It came very close to being one of my favorite movies.

Carnival of Souls (1962)

This movie feels decades ahead of its time.

It feels like a blueprint for psychological horror. The imagery is incredible and the entire movie feels like a dream that slowly turns into a nightmare. There are scenes and images from this movie that have been stuck in my head long after I finished watching it.

One of my favorite horror movies of all time.

Messiah of Evil (1973)

This is a movie that is almost entirely aesthetics and vibes.

I did not really care about the story and it is definitely slow. If I am being honest, I do not think the plot is the reason to watch this movie.

What makes it special is the atmosphere. The whole movie feels dreamlike, surreal and strangely disconnected from reality. The supermarket scene is iconic.

If you like liminal aesthetics and horror that prioritizes mood over substance, this is absolutely worth checking out.

Seconds (1966)

I remember finishing this movie and thinking that I did not like it very much.

The premise follows a man who is given the opportunity to completely start over with a new identity and a new life. The title is not referring to time. It refers to people being given a second chance at life.

The weird thing is that the movie never really left my head. I found myself thinking about it long after it ended.

There is something oddly futuristic about it. The whole movie feels paranoid, introspective and deeply uncomfortable. It left me with a lingering feeling of sadness and existential dread that few movies have managed to replicate.

Viy (1967)

This was a really fun folk horror movie.

The story follows a young priest who is forced to spend three nights praying over the body of a young woman inside an isolated church.

The plot itself is fairly simple but it's done so well. The visual effects are charming and iconic. I was thoroughly impressed. If you enjoy folklore, witches and old-school practical effects, this is absolutely worth checking out.

The Old Dark House (1932)

It was fun watching such an early haunted house horror movie and seeing where so many later horror tropes came from.

What surprised me most was the house itself. A lot of movies from this era feel very stagey but this house felt surprisingly real and lived in. The atmosphere is excellent and I found myself wanting to explore more of it.

There are also a few ideas and characters that felt surprisingly unusual for a movie from 1932. It made me wonder how much stranger it could have been if it had not been limited by the conventions of its time.

My biggest complaint is that I wanted more of the house. The setting was by far the most interesting part of the movie. I am still pissed that they didn't show much of the kitchen!

The Face of Another (1966)

This is one of the weirdest movies on this list and you definitely need to be in the right mood for it.

The story follows a man whose face is severely disfigured after an accident. A scientist offers him an experimental mask that gives him an entirely new face and the chance to start over as someone else.

From there the movie becomes a strange psychological exploration of identity, appearance and how differently people treat us based on how we look.

The visuals are incredibly bold and often surreal. There are shots and ideas in this movie that still feel unusual today. At times it feels more like a nightmare or a science fiction film than a thriller.

It is not a movie I would recommend to everyone but if you enjoy strange stuff with unforgettable imagery, it is absolutely worth checking out.

Normally I don’t make posts like this, but you should really check out Widow’s Bay. It’s not getting enough attention and I genuinely don’t want to see it get cancelled.

The spoiler-free premise is that Matthew Rhys plays the mayor of a tiny island town filled with myths, urban legends, and strange local stories, while trying to turn the place into a tourist attraction.

It’s a horror comedy, which might turn some people off because it often isn’t scary at all, but I’m glad I went in open-minded because it is hilarious and it does have creepy moments. I’m also a huge fan of Matthew Rhys, so maybe I’m biased, but he’s fantastic in this.

Minor thematic spoilers ahead, not plot spoilers.

>!The show uses that old-school procedural “mystery/monster of the week” structure while slowly connecting everything into a larger story underneath. It gave me a weird nostalgia for things like Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark? For more modern comparisons, it reminded me a bit of Midnight Mass because of the isolated island setting, though this is obviously much lighter in tone. It also reminded me of Evil with the procedural supernatural cases and the occasional genuinely unsettling moments.The pilot mostly sets up the premise, but things really start moving from episode 2 onward. I’m also just a sucker for small towns, urban legends, and mythical monsters.!<

Let me know what you think if you end up watching it.

I was anxious the entire time watching them. Not traditional horror but this constant feeling of impending doom where you know something is going to go horribly wrong, you just don’t know when or how. It makes you start overanalyzing every mundane conversation, expression, and interaction, looking for clues that something is about to unravel.