Hunter X Hunter: Phantom Rogue (2013) [REVIEW] | Master of Muppets

Anime movies based around popular shonen series aren’t weird per sé, but just the fact they made Hunter X Hunter anime films feels somehow off to me.

Yes i know Hunter X Hunter has been a big Shonen Jump series…. but it’s not quite your typical shonen manga series, not quite ready-made for the “non-canon original story anime film” pipeline.

Just reading the synopsis i got the feeling this was just a way to extend HXH presence as an anime after the 2011 series ended (and was never continued)…but nope, this was released in Japanese theathers in 2013, in the final stretched of Greed Island arc.

Yet, even so, my gut was somehow correct, this is indeed what it sounded like, something ordered upon from a committee more than anything else, to fatten the suits wallets with cinema money, with a “double hit”, since later the same year Madhouse also released in theathers HXH: Last Mission.

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[EXPRESSO] Ferine (2026) | A Raora Panthera Ate My Baby!

The other italian horror film to debut in theathers here (the other being The Nameless Ballad), Ferine, which goes in an interesting direction, even if it tackles a common theme for horror, especially modern horror, as in: maternity.

Irene is a rich fine art collector that, after picking up her baby from her surrogate mother, suffers a street accident due to a loose panther (which was being shipped to a rich huntress), losing even the child, and afterwards she start to become more feral, regressing to a mostly mute animal, rejecting any food that isn’t raw meat, while the surrogate mother and the huntress are forced to eventually intervene since Irene was never gonna make the incident or the surrogate baby public…

It’s actually quite interesting, as there is the influence of the old Italian horror classics, but also a bit of Raw, there’s the ambition of the “elevated horror” but also a strong identity of its own, a confidence in its own vision, as it curiously opts to imply more than show the gore and blood, to focus on Irene psychological regression into a feral, like a modern take on Cat People, thanks to Bracken’s very good performance as Irene.

The main issues lay in how the script does ultimately not properly depict Irene as a character proper, and the final act, instead of escalating to its extremes the themes… it just kinda potters about to restate stuff already more than established, almost as if we needed to put it genre clichès leading to a more stock resolution to pad the runtime.

It’s a shame, because it’s a very good debut film for Andrea Corsini, a flawed one that mostly tumbles towards the end due to the script, but regardless i do wanna see what he cooks up next.

[EXPRESSO] The Nameless Ballad (2026) | Teenage Pop Rock God

The Nameless Ballad on paper is an interesting change from Federico Zampaglione previous film, The Well (which i quite liked), as this later movie is an old fashioned ghost/haunted house story.

Sam Gallo is an upcoming musician that, when hit by writer’s block, is sent by his agent to an isolated villa in Italy, so he can focus on overcoming this creative slump, but there he starts seeing strange visions, especially after he finds a chest containing a diary of an Italian woman, a key to the villa’s piano and an unnamed, apparently unfinished composition….

The premise is decent, the main actor is solid, a couple of good jumpscares, but it becomes soon dull and slow moving (even for just 90 minutes), the more it goes on the more it basically falls apart, case and point the tragic backstory that explains more about the haunting… and almost made laugh, as it feels like accidental parody and makes the movie as a whole feel – frankly – stupid.

Even the theme of the music industry exploiting its talents is handled in such a juvenile, trite way that you’d almost want to side with the label to be contrarian…not that you will care about anyone’s fate, besides the dog, best character, i’m not even joking.

It feels like a big “Frankengum”, pieced together from chiclets found under other people’ classroom desks, masticated once more in the vain hope that if you keep chewing the flavour will come back.

There’s a difference between a deliberate old fashion approach and just being…. just dated, decrepit, reeking of that moth balls/napthalene scent you’d find when rummaging through your grandparents’ wardrobe. Kinda tragic because it’s obvious Zampaglione genuinely cares about the genre, he isn’t being cynical or anything, but nothing really works here, to my disappointment.

[EXPRESSO] Wild Horse Nine (2026) | Party In The RA.PA.NUI.

Martin McDonagh (Seven Psychopaths, Three Manifests Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Banshee Of Inesherin) is back with a black comedy spy thriller, Wild Horse Nine, which takes back to the not-so-funky ’70s, just before the 1973 Chilean coup-de-etat, with the CIA bureau chief, MJ (Steve Buscemi) dispatching two officers, Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell), to Rapa Nui, as in, Easter Island.

The trip from Santiago there already proves hardous, as Chris seemingly suffers from some sort of alzeihmer, while also being overly candid about their motives and intentions, but among the peaceful tourist life and the gazing at the moai, many conspiracies are actually being acted on, putting Chris and Lee longtime friendship and loyalties to the test, especially as Chris befriending a local rebellious girl might sent the whole “operation” (whatever that is) to go belly up…

While the plot actually thickens and progressively reveals the real stakes at play here (or more correctly the machinations), the main crux of the film is how this affects the relationship between Chris and Lee, not only as colleagues but as genuine friends, as both events from the past and future treathen this too, especially due to dangerous cocktail of Chris’s deteriorating memory, its involvement in many secret operations and its questioning of those in his old age…

It’s honestly an amazing film, starts off a bit slow but the pay off is immense, as it manages to be incredibly funny, the comedy fairly brutal, not pulling any punch on the sensitive themes (and political period of yore) it tackles, but also able to deliver devasting emotional blows as well as many quotable lines, and everyone is on top of their game (even if Tom Waits is being progressively “Nick Nolte’d” the more he continues to appear in movies).

Highly recommended.

The Real Deal November Schedeal

So, for the rest of November the schedule is back to more or less 1 full review every 7 days, more ore less weekly, do not expect extra stuff, even EXPRESSO reviews might be late and scattered from the next week forward.

On that subject, do not expect a review for Klara and The Sun by Taika Waititi, i saw some listings but there were like, a handful of screening theathers nationwide, couldn’t catch a single one (wouldn’t be surprised if they just outright removed the film after the first week, or even earlier), then i got wind how its awful box office turnout in the US is most likely gonna see it not released in some countries at all, not in theathers anyway.

Dicember is more or less 90% ready, some late schedule changes have been made out of necessity and unexpected issues, but nothing of substance has really changed for that month since previous posts made this summer or earlier fall.

Maybe i’ll manage to squeeze in some updates to the pages, we’ll see.

War Of The Monsters PS2 | PS4/PS5 [REVIEW] | Destroy All Copyrights

The PS2 era turns out was indeed a golden age for kaiju and monster games in general, as not only we had Atari hit gold with the Pipeworks trilogy of Godzilla games, Rampage was back with Rampage Total Destruction, but we also had a PS2 exclusive 3D brawler, War Of The Monsters.

Which i sadly don’t own anymore (i remember owning it at some point), and for convenience sake i’ll use the PS4 and PS5 upscaled rerelease Sony made available, played on PS5.

No better time now that the Destroy All Monsters Melee Remaster drops, indeed.

As weird as it seems, yes, back in the day Sony took on itself to publish a 3D arena fighter about giant monsters, aliens and 50s robots, developed by Incognito Entertaiment, which Sony absorbed as a first party studio, previously did Twisted Metal Black and would later work on some of the last titles of that series, including the PSP entry, Head On.

Most likely even if you didn’t had the game, you would still have played it on a demo disc, because yes, once upon a time there were print magazines about gaming that would include a DVD containing both trailer and playable demos of upcoming demos.

Or straight up kiosks where you could play demo versions of upcoming games, i’m so old i remember doing so for the original Luigi’s Mansion.

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Day Of The Dead break

Hope you enjoyed this year’s Spooktacular Eight and the few extra reviews i squeezed in for Halloween, today is break day, just a little rejuvenation before we tackle a very busy November.

[EXPRESSO] Hope (2026) | In The Sleepy Little Town Of

Na Hong-jin (The Yellow Sea, The Chaser, The Wailing) is back with Hope, a massive action monster film that it’s actually best enjoyed by going to see it while knowing as little as possible about it, but it easy enough to keep spoiler free and the premise is actually fairly simple.

In the small village of Hope Harbour (situated nearby the Korean Demilitarized Zone), the police chief and his rookie deputy find themselves having to fend off a mysterious creature that has brutalized the livestock, is actively destroying the village and its people, while a hunting party in the woods find themselves stalked….

It doesn’t sound like much, yet there is more to it, as this is basically both a tribute and a mockery of the american action film, taking inspiration from Bong Joon-Ho’s The Host but also being somewhere tribute and parody of the 50s b-movie creature feature (there even the bumbling sheriff protagonist equivalent), with the characters being both cartoonish yet relatable in their incompetence, the director able to switch the tone on the fly and make the comedic bit not feel dissonant, to make intense action scenes Hollywood style then kinda “spoof” them at the same time.

It’s incredibly captivating and its turns more towards sci-fi, but as impressive as it is how it can handle multiple tones, how it builds to reveal not only the real scope and the stakes, but also how it actually manages to make its 2 hours and 40 minutes runtime a relative breeze, there’s always something happening, the action is incredible, and you always want more of everything.

My only gripe is that the CG for creatures can be underwhelming at times, but even with this, i highly recommend what is now one of the best films i’ve seen all years.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole SEASON ONE AND TWO [REVIEW] | A Graveyard Smash

I’ve hold off of reviewing this one in the hope Adult Swim would release it on physical media, but i’m tired, even though you can buy the series on various streaming sites… which still means technically there’s no real international release, even if you can see the whole series on AS website.

well, not quite the whole series, but we’ll get to that later.

This has been a favourite of mine for years, it’s Halloween, fuck it, we’re going through Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole, from Dino Stamatoppolous, better known for his other Adult Swim cult series, Moral Orel.

It ran from June 2010 to march 2012, amassing 20 episodes, divided over for 2 seasons, but nowadays i feel it mostly faded away, and it’s never brought up in discussion, so i’m doing it now.

Also yes, we already had a Frankenstein review as an extra treat, so consider this an Hallowen treat.

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The Spooktacular Eight #40: Tokyo Gore Police (2008)

Tokyo Gore Police had been one of my favourites of the Japanese school of 2000s exploitation high on splatter and sexual perversity, but it turns out i’ve never actually reviewed it, just mentioned it as as the “gold standard” for other films of this ilk.

But as i learned of Yoshihiro Noshimura’s passing earlier this May (his last film was Geisha War, released post-humously this September), by actress Eihi Shina (better known for her role in Miike’s Audition and as the lead in Tokyo Gore Police) reflecting on her experience working with him over the years… it’s time to pay my respects to the “Japanese Tom Savini”, as he had been called, and i’m more than happy to oblige.

Especially since Tokyo Gore Police is the first film he ever directed, after having been a special effect and make up supervisor for many films, including Sion Sono’s Suicide Club, the 2003 comedy horror romance A Larvae To Love by fellow guro gonzo filmmaker Noburo Iguchi, and even worked on the special effects for Meatball Machine, directed by Yudai Yamaguchi and Jun’Ichi Miyamoto.

After working with Noguchi again on the fx for The Machine Girl, Noshimura was asked if he wanted to do anothe movie, so he chose to remake his 1995 “short” film, Anatomia Extinction, into what would become Tokyo Gore Police.

Seems kinda silly to even discuss what this movie is about, given its title, but you would miss how and why “ze police” is goring all over the place.

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