Dagon (2001) [REVIEW] | Shadow Over Galicia

Dagon, my sweet Dagon, oh what foul stench thou emits,

enough to make one sad at how it all went once again amiss,

cursed indeed by another Elder God these adaptations seem

of Lovecraft’s hate for fish supreme.

For the record, i don’t hate or begrudge Stuart Gordon’s work overall and his obvious love for the source material, i mean, the Reanimator series was also spun from a H.P. Lovecraft story and that managed to work, though it became its own thing, i am more than “ok” with that.

I mean, for fuck’s sake if that story in particular needed to be scrubbed – in adaptations – of the obniouxsly blatant racism, you’ll need to clean the Lovecraft out of Lovecraft “sometimes”.

But i also can’t deny there are reasons why fans of Lovecraft are beyond sick of the many adaptations that defy the thousand monkeys & thousand typewriters logic, and that somehow no one over decades has managed to adapt any of his stories (in films, strictly speaking) with success without fuckin things up, as in, completely destroy any attempt at atmosphere, deviate so much from the original story to the point it might as well be adapting another Lovecraft tale, AND making crap movies that are bad regardless of what author’s name they borrow.

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[EXPRESSO] Spider Man: Across The Spiderverse (2023) | Peter Parter

This review it’s only a formality, but yes, indeed, i had high expectations of this new Spider Man animated movie after Into The Spiderverse was a surprise smash hit, an unexpected excellent opus from an animation studio mostly known for Hotel Transylvania and The Angry Birds movie.

We never saw it coming, but it happened and while it had the side effect of making the live-action Marvel offerings kinda redundant and pointless, i would have been happy even if there wasn’t a sequel, despite being no reason to stop there, i mean, we got the new origin story/introduction of Miles Morales as one of the many Spider Man personas, the studio was gonna follow that up regardless.

This sequel to Into The Spiderverse also follows in the recent resurgence of “two parters” (giving even more proof that time is a flat circle, at least in terms of entertaiment media), and in this “part 1” we see Miles (and Gwen) venture deeper into the multiverse of various Spider personas from many dimensions/universes, meeting a new team of “Spidersonas” known as Spider Society, led by Miguel O’Hara (aka Spider Man 2099), but instead of collaborating they end up clashing in regards of how to deal with the villain at hand.

And honestly it meets the high expectations set by the previous movie, delivering a lot of inspired visuals, variety of animation styles and stylization, new charming and likable characters, plus the story dwelves deeper into the multiverse aspect, Miles’ role in this, so even if it ends on a cliffhanger for “part 2”, it’s not just 2 hours and 1/2 of setup, it’s already very very good as expected, and again it manages to make you really care even if you weren’t already much invested in Spiderman his many comic book incarnations/iterations.

Venomous/Venom (2001) [REVIEW] | #snakesofjunetoo

We’re out of Anaconda sequels at the moment (there’s a reboot in the works, confirmed 3 months ago with Tom Gormican, better known for The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent) , so let’s start digging into another barrel o’ snakes by rummaging – as we usually end up doing – through Fred Olen Ray filmography.

Not that i picked up the movie this way, it was another random find on Amazon Prime Video, but there’s no real surprise to see him listed as director… under one of his pseudonyms, Ed Raymond this time, why shouldn’t be his work?

Not to be confused with Silent Venom from 2009, also directed by Fred Olen Ray, in which he realized he could put snakes inside of submarines instead of planes.

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Bringing Out The Serpents again for #snakesofjunetoo

Last June we did feature a lot of serpent based movies (often b-movies, that much is true), so we’re doing it again this year too, though on a smaller scale due to an increase of work and other personal obligations. Plus a surprisingly full summer release schedule of films coming out here (united with a nationwide promotion on ticket prices), so there will be a lot of EXPRESSO reviews…. yes, we’ll also review that one with the lead actors that keeps constantly getting arrested, because while i abhor him, i did watch and review movies where he was in before, like the theatherical cut of Justice League or the recently released (and reviewed) Dalìland, where he plays a very minor role, so much i didn’t notice he was in before watching the thing.

So yeah, it wouldn’t be quite correct of me to stop now, especially since i seriously doubt The Flash will do much in terms of box office, i mean, it’s not one of the more popular superheroes, it’s very well known and documented even between the less devoted audiences that Erza Miller is basically assaulting people on a whim at a noticeable rate, both Black Adam and Shazam 2 weren’t well regarded or even that lucrative (though i did rate Fury Of The Gods higher than most, personally), and remember, this movie also exists to completely reset the mess of the DC Extended Universe, so they can start again with Gunn at the helm.

Plus, honestly the movie looks kinda ass, and it’s undeniable this is NOT a project the studios really believes in, otherwise they wouldn’t have advertised it by dangling the return of Michael Keaton as Batman in trailers, like bait. And that’s some good bait.

Again, i don’t blame people opting out of seeing The Flash because of Erza Miller, or regardless of him, you do you. I kinda have to, to a certain degree.

[EXPRESSO] The Boogeyman (2023) | Mid-Boogie

Apparently another Stephen King’s short story adaptation, which makes me kinda wish i did watch last year’s Firestarter remake, but then again, does it really matter?

I mean, we get a movie like this like every few months or so, and the title is apt even if it’s the most stock combo of laughable and generic.

It’s definitely “to the point”, because the plot concerns a therapist and his family, processing their grief after the death of the wife, only to be haunted-stalked by a supernatural entity that feeds on vulnerable people and feeds on their suffering, after a troubled man shows up at the therapist’s house out of the blue and is found hanged in a closed room.

Did i tell you the crux of the movie is about the sisters (a child and the older teenage daughter) bonding and managing to get over their mother’s death while they learn more about the entity and try to face it when it’s clear nobody else actually believes the thing to be more than a byproduct of their imagination? Well, you could have guessed that too.

What’s surprising is despite the movie being as stock, formulaic, derivative and uninspired as it seems… the execution saves it, almost shocking you that, despite the premise, there being no big twist to mix the formula, and – well -everything, ultimately the movie isn’t half bad.

Which it’s kind of a stupid way of putting it, it’s average so, yeah, it’s “half bad”, technically, but the characters aren’t detestable or too stupid, at all, the creature is shown fairly clearly, has an ok design and looks quite decent in terms of effects, plus the finale it’s satisfying enough.

For something called The Boogeyman, it’s a surprising enjoyable horror film, if generic, very average and throwaway.

[EXPRESSO] Renfield (2023) | Flies On The Windscreen

Robert is a man stuck in a toxic codepent relationship with his boss, and partecipates in group therapy sessions to get over it… while also find new abusive monsters to feed his own, Count Dracula itself, as Robert is actually Robert Renfield (Nicholas Hoult), the vampire’s infamous long time familiar, now living in modern New Orleans.

But Renfield it’s tired of being second fiddle and wants out, trying to turn his life around for himself, even falling in love with a righteous police officer (Awkwafina) that feels offended of doing menial jobs instead of busting down the criminal gang that killed her father.

I wasn’t sure what to make of the premise of Renfield, but i fully support Universal’s bent for trying to do new things with their old legacy franchises, this time a comedy horror about Dracula’s iconic familiar/slave, bringing him out of the sanitarium in a modern setting and basically having him try to escape his life as Dracula’s servant, moonlighting as an anti-hero that just needs to feed on insects to gain their life force and rip out people limbs like they’re made of rotten weeks old tuna.

Plus we have Nicholas Cage as fuckin Dracula, hell yeah i was absolutely IN… and after watching the movie i can say this is NOT the case where i love the concept but not the movie as a whole, because the gamble paid off and makes for a light hearted, silly little horror comedy with surprising wit, lots of funny over the top gore effects of good quality and enjoyable action scenes.

Excellent casting too, especially Cage as Dracula is a delightful, brutal but also a manipulative, petty asshole of a monster.

The movie it’s also short, but honestly for the better as it avoids spreading the premise thin.

[EXPRESSO] Dalìland (2022) | Surrealist of The Nth Dimension

A Salvador Dalì biopic by the director of American Psycho, why did i almost miss it?

Well, there’s actually a reason that this one didn’t make much waves, as it’s a surprisingly by the numbers, skin-deep biopic about Dalì’s later years.

Set primarly in 1973’s New York, the plot follows a young gallery intern, James, who gets to moonlight as an assistant in order to motivate and ensure Dalì will produce new paintings for a new collection, which lets him see the man behind the artist, one broken by a constant fear of looming death, his excessive lifestyle that drains him in both the lifeforce and the wallet, his tormented relationship with his wife Gala, plus his Parkinson growing worse and limiting his art as well.

It’s not a bad movie, Ben Kingsley as Dalì alone saves it from being terrible or whatever, but it feels like its going through the paces, not actually interested in trying to also explain (or even depict) Dalì’s art in correlation to anything, which is reasonable since his work is far from being unseen niche stuff, but it also seems extra irrelevant, even more since there’s barely any character that feel properly nourished, or – so to say – “real”.

Plus the final act seems in a sudden rush, for whatever reason now events that would have been given entire scenes minutes before….are not, so you get the cliffnotes for important character’s life events, maybe there would have been time if the movie didn’t almost spent more time fleshing out the audience surrogate character instead of Dalì or where Alice Cooper listens to Ted Neeley spell out he was the protagonist in Jesus Christ Superstar.

It’s a mediocre, run-of-the-mill biopic, but it’s watchable, arguably inoffensive as well… which is kinda depressing in a way.