[EXPRESSO] 32 Malasana Street (2020) | The Madrid Haunting

A Spanish-French coproduction, going by the international title of 32 Malasana Street, which is nearly identical to the original spanish title.

So of course it arrives in italian theathers titled “Possession – L’Appartamento Del Diavolo” (which translates to “Possession: The Devil’s Apartment”). Of course.

Originally i was planning to see it last Halloween, but i didn’t manage to because another lockdown hit cinemas here the day after this came out, and turns out it has been delayed to now. I was gonna see it due to “starvation”, since i don’t really care about the “possession-demons” subgenre, it’s definitely not my favourite type of horror movie, but i’ll give it a fair shake regardless.

The story has a nice backdrop, as in it’s set in 1976’s Madrid, just after the fall of Franco’s regime, and follows the Olmedo family moving to the capital in search of a better life. They get lucky and somehow find an apartment in the city center for a bargain. Things start getting better, but strange, unexplicable events keep happening in the house, until the youngest child, Rafael, just disappears.

Ah, yes, the old horror movie tradition of estate listings being too good to be true.

I’ll be honest, 32 Malasana Street isn’t original in any way, it uses a lot of familiar clichès (especially for “possession/haunting”flicks), and i mean a lot, the premise is as stock as it comes, but there’s some gusto and a lot of confidence to the execution that it helps the movie in rising above being the usual rubbish.

It definitely helps that the entity is quite aggressive from the get go, things happen at a good pace, the character are quite decent, quite relatable, the audio design is pretty good and there’s an expectedly “sensitive” good twist to boot.

Surprisingly decent.

One Piece TV SP 8: 3D2Y – Overcoming Ace’s Death! Luffy’s Pledge to his Friends (2014) [REVIEW]

Director: Naoyuki Itou

Writer: Hirohiko Kamisaka, Jin Tanaka, Tomohiro Nakayama

Runtime: 108 minutes

I’d say “SPOILER ALERT”, but it’s not like the title itself even tries to hide it, with the subtitle being “Overcoming Ace’s Death”, and since i have seen people parade this “spoiler” arounds anime cons pretty much anywhere (combined with Jump banking on his life status for later derivative works, like One Piece Novel A).

That aside, with “3D2Y” we’re finally getting started for real, finally talking about quite interesting and intriguing stuff, with some ambition and scope to it, instead of just being an abridged retelling or a cute filler-type mini-story, and utilizing the 2 year time-skip to its advantage, not only to evoke an emotional response, but to fill some of the narrative “gaps” left in the story.

In this case, the special is set during Luffy’s training on Amazon Lily, as he learns to control Haki/Ambition from Silver Rayleigh on the island of Ruskaina. Suddendly Navy ships are being attacked and destroyed by Byrinn World, an incredibly powerful pirate that was betrayed by some of its crew members and was held in Impel Down, but escaped after the Paramount War/Marine Ford events. Now reunited with his older brother and the rest of his crew, World kidnaps Boa and Marigold Sandersonia (Hancock’ sisters), so Luffy and Hancock set out to rescue them from World’s ship, while the other Warlords Of The Sea are summoned to deal with the issue at hand.

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[EXPRESSO] The Deep House (2021) | The House In The Lake

This time we tackle a french horror version of Wet-Dry World from Super Mario 64.

Or that Everblue/Endless Ocean horror version i joked about during Shark Month.

Withouts sharks.

Not that it matters much this being a french production, as the two main characters,an american couple filming “haunted places” in search of Youtube fame and fortune, are played by american actors. The couple goes to a very small little French town in hope to cover the artificial lake, but instead got wind of a perfectly intact house resting in a remote part of the lake, and decide to dive and film their underwater adventure.

I like the scenario, big fan of scuba diving and submerged mysteries as a whole, the premise is decent and takes from european folklore (there are many stories about submerged little villages), but The Deep House leans a bit too much into said premise, never bothering to properly execute it and just stuffing it with cliches.

And has a “cowardly” script that quotes half the famous “it’s not dead which can eternal lie” couplet from Call Of Chthulu, but doesn’t really go there, despite having the perfect setup and excuse to do so.

Also, its one of those horror movies shot mostly in found footage style… just to make some of the things happening harder to see. No real reason otherwise.

It’s not awful, it has some good cinematography, but it’s a horror movie with decent atmosphere (and even that it’s kinda low effort, as it’s baked in the scenario) and almost no tension or scares (aside a single effective jumpscare), more worried about looking good that having any real bite, doesn’t help that the main couple isn’t exactly that likeable (especially the guy), interesting or otherwise well characterized.

Overall, it’s sadly a pretty mediocre experience.

One Piece TV SP 7: Episode Of Merry – The Tale Of One More Friend (2013) [REVIEW]

Director: Katsumi Tokoro

Writer: Hirohiko Kamisaka

Runtime: 106 Minutes

Time for another frigging special that retells with the new animation older story arcs.

In this instance, it’s…not even based on a person, but this is One Piece, so of course the ship itself ends up being a character, important enough to warrant crucial conflict over it, to say without spoiling some surprises for fans that have not yet made their way up to Enies Lobby’s conclusion.

It is the crux of some of the fondest memories for the main characters and i mean, it really speaks of how profoundly One Piece romanticize piracy from the age of conquest. Also, there’s the plain fact of the Going Merry having actually been ranking fairly high in characters popularity polls for the series, heck, even in the most recent one (held from January 3 through February 2021, on a worlwide scale) it ranked 32^th, just below Whitebeard and above Silvers Rayleigh. Amazing.

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One Piece TV SP 6: Episode Of Luffy – Adventure On Hand Island (2012) [REVIEW]

Director: Hiroyuki Morita, Mitsuru Hongo

Writer: Yasuyuki Tsutumi

Runtime: 102 Minutes

Worry not, this time we don’t have another recap special.. kinda.

It’s not totally uncommon, as in 2008 they already did a similar thing with the 9^th One Piece movie about retelling the Drum Island Arc… while making it happen after Water 7, and adding some new characters that change the story a bit. We’ll get to talk in more detail about that… next year.

Well, this special doesn’t actually go that far, as it is an originaly story, but also has extensive flashback sequences retelling the very beginning of the series, with Luffy meeting Shanks for the first time to his first encounter with Coby. The story sees Luffy befriend a wax sculptor called Diego and helping him save his son Regis, imprisoned by the corrupt Marine Commodore Bilic.

This after witnessing a “Straw Hat fashion show” held by Usop, meant to present all the crew members… for reasons, most likely padding out the special by 6 minutes, as if you don’t know anything about these characters while deciding to watch a TV special about their series.

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One Piece TV SP 5: Episode of Nami – Tears of a Navigator and the Bonds of Friends (2012) [REVIEW]

Director: Katsumi Tokoro

Writer: Hirohiko Kamisaka

Runtime: 106 Minutes

Like with the One Piece movies, eventually Toei went for the “lazy” route and decided to occasionaly not even bother writing some new material for these TV specials.

This is not to rag on the Toei animators, writers and such, but i’m sorry, these “recap movies/specials” are lazy from a creative standpoint, they are, and it’s not like they serve much purpose as seeing the same scenes and parts of the story you already saw done with a slightly better animation and production values, all repackaged in an abridged fashion running over 90 minutes.

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One Piece TV SP 4: One Piece Historical Drama Series – Luffy’s Detective Story (2005) [REVIEW]

Director: Unknown

Writer: Unknown

Runtime: 42 Minutes

Time for One Piece to go “jidaigeki” and rock the 19^th centhury japanese setting way before the Land Of Wa arc, but – as the opening narrator smugly and humurously remind us – this special takes place in Jipangu, which may look like some country of some time ago, but let’s not be pedantic, it’s just a cartoon after all.

You should really just relax.

In this case it’s not a chanbara styled special, but more in the vein of Ranpo Edogawa’s period detective stories, with the One Piece characters (included many old faces from the early arcs) playing the role of civilians, tax collectors, carpenters and so on, while Luffy is the purposely unfitting secret policeman-detective of the city, and mantains order with his fists and jitte, aided by ninja Usop and perpentually indebted to Nami and Sanji’s restaurant.

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One Piece TV SP 3: Save! The Last Big Stage (2003) [REVIEW]

Director: Junji Shimizu

Writer: Junki Takegami

Runtime: 46 Minutes

While it’s not One Piece’s doing a community theather version of Rigoletto…. yeah, it’s not that, years and years later Toei they eventually tried to do some musical style episodes, but of course the most the Straw Hats could actually do is the circus, with or without amish clowns.

And before you ask, no, they didn’t stoop as low as having Buggy/Bagy involved.

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One Piece TV SP 2: Open Upon the Great Sea! A Father’s Huge, HUGE Dream! (2003) [REVIEW]

Director: Munehisa Sakai

Writer: Yoshiyuki Suga, Junki Takegami

Runtime: 46 Minutes

Now we’re getting started…kinda, but as this came out when the anime series’ technical quality rose, it’s fair to say it looks better than the previous TV special, and features better presentation overall.

The story see a couple of pirates, Bonnie and Max, tired of working under their captain, Zap, but also have no money or resources to attempt an escape. One of the kidnapped children on the ship, Amanda, overhears them, and proposes a deal to them, since her was a treasure hunter and told her the location of this bounty. They agree, manage to escape to a small island, where the Straw Hats also happen to have landed to see if there’s anything or anyone there.

As the Zap pirates were chasing after the runaways, they find and capture again Amanda… while a narcoleptic Luffy accidentally launches itself into the enemy ship only to fall asleep and it’s also captured and brough to Zap’s boss, Bayan, who wants the treasure Amanda’s father hid for his children. After struggling with the inusual ability of Bayan and his crew, Luffy and company fight the Bayan pirates, find the treasure and Amanda finally understand why her father was never home and why he dedicated so much time and energy on his craft…

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Great White (2021) [REVIEW] | Seaplane Rescue Rumble

Want some fresh shark movie? Well, it doesn’t get any fresher than this, as this is the more recent movie we’ll spotlight during this year’s Shark Month, and was released just last month, both via theatrical releases in some countries, and video on demand.

Personally, i discovered it among the new releases on DVD while browsing Amazon UK, was pretty cheap, so i ordered it asap. It helped being promoted as “from the executive producers of 47 Meters Down series”. Even if it’s a half-truth, as both Jack Christian and Christopher Figg DON’T appear listed as “executive producers” in 47 Meters Down or 47 Meters Down Uncaged, at least on IMDB.

I understand “from one of the producers of Dog Soldiers” wasn’t gonna fly, but why don’t actually sell it as “from the producers of Black Water: Abyss”, where they did work as executive producers. It does come from Altitude, one of the main companies also behind the 47 Meters Down series, so..

This is an australian production, with – fittingly so – australian actors (partly filmed off of Brisbane’s coast, to boot), and it’s directed by Martin Wilson, pretty much as his debut full lenght feature, as – according to IMDB – he directed two shorts and a TV movie called “Roll”.

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