Dino Dicember postponed yet again, 12 Days Of Dino Dicember will be back

I really didn’t want to make this post, but after i sat down and did some planning, i had to eventually come to the conclusion i won’t be able to make a full-sized Dino Dicember like i wanted, with daily reviews as it should be, and trying to force it with my increasingly busy work schedule will just drive me insane, hence unable to pull it off anyway.

Also, i hold off on posting this, but it would be worse if i “unleashed” this announcements in very late November.

But i also REALLY hate to do nothing dino related, so yep, 12 Days Of Dino Dicembers will be back, so bring your dinosaurs canonicals ready for some liturgical nonsense. Literally, in some cases.

In the meantime, please enjoy tomorrow’s EXPRESSO review of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Zombie VS Ninja AKA Zombie Rivals (1989) [REVIEW] | Coffin Ho

You know i don’t even need an excuse to review these old Godfrey Ho movies aside from the fact i just love to do so. But its still (technically) the spookie-ookie season, so you better believe i have some properly themed (or more spuriously-connected) reviews of garbage from the nearly infinite pile of Godfrey Ho 80s output, and we already reviewed the infamous Robo Vampire, so let’s indulge.

I’m gonna just call it Zombie VS Ninja, since it’s original title and the one it’s known as mostly, though in my UK DVD release by Vengeance Video it was retitled as Zombie Rivals on the box, Zombie Rivals: The Super Ninja Master on the disc, and “Zodiac America – The Super Master” in the actual film, which is the usual transfer from VHS, with 3 extra minutes of black nothing at the end, just so the film can technically reach 90 minutes. As usual for these.

So, we already start with some strong “Ho-isms”, not bad, and this one of the few Pierre Kirby feature entries in Filmarts/IDF catalogue, so we start off on the right foot.

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The Spooktacular Eight #16: Bloody Delinquent Chainsaw Girl (2016)

I assume if you clicked this review you’re familiar with the japanese style of grindhouse splatter exploitation horror, which often involves schoolgirls equipped with machineguns in the ass, boobular rifles, zombie vaginas that spit flame, quadruple amputeed gimps with blades as limbs, gallons of fake blood, decapitated heads talking or moving about, zombies coming out toilets, mutant freaks with biomechanical chainsaw growing on their arms, etc.

You know the famous ones, from The Machine Girl, Robogeisha, Helldriver, Tokyo Gore Police, Dead Sushi, Mutants Girls Squad, Vampire Girl VS Frankenstein Girl (which i revisited earlier) and last year we featured Big Tits Dragon, also based on a manga of the same name by Rei Mikamoto.

This adaptation is directed by a lesser known name in the field, Hiroki Yamaguchi (Hellevator, various live action Messiah Gaiden films and TV series), which i’m not really familiar with, and i can’t say i’m familiar with the original manga by the author of Satanister – Satanic Sister.

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Vampire Holmes (2015) [REVIEW] | Everlasting Love

YES, i’ve heard of this by doing a research on the worst voted/rated shows on AnimeList.

I could have talked about NAMI (no, not that one, not that Nami either, most likely not even your thrid guess), so you decide if you lucked out or not in this occasion.

I’ve held off on covering it because it’s so goddamn obscure and has such infamous reputation… that even finding english fansubs for it was a notable task.

And it figures the only english subbed version i could find around it’s from a group labelling themselves as “BetterThanNothing”, i’m sure even they eventually did so moved by piety, as nobody even wanted to bother making it more available. It’s a rare case of people finding an anime so shit that they don’t even spread awareness by shit-talking it, they figured it was more deserving of wallowing in the dark, unspoken and unheard of, still more valuable than trying to actively focusing a spotlight on it, even if just to trash it for easy views on Youtube and socials.

Can’t say that it was a bad stance to take, in hindsight, this is no Chargeman Ken.

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The Spooktacular Eight #12: Microwave Massacre (1979)

There are many types of massacres.

You can opt for the classics of axe, chainsaw and proper sharp instruments that while not built for slaying the fellow man are indeed excellent for severing, cutting and shit like that.

Why not think outside the box… or inside the box, as in go for a power drill, a woodchipper, a nailgun or even just use all the things inside a toolbox?

Go cannibal while you’re at it.

I mean, this movie decided to do so but also title its massacre after a microwave… which isn’t the actual weapon of killing, while being pivotal to the protagonist’s agenda, after he uses a salt grinder to kill his nagging wife May, obsessed with haute cuisine, during a drunken rage one night.

He sober ups the next day, completely unaware of what he did the night before… until he finds the corpse stuffed into their new huge ass microwave, decides to quickly dispose of his wife remains by dismembering and hiding it in the fridge, only to later accidentally take a bite out of May’s tinfoiled hand, liking the taste, things lead to things, and to Donald cooking the body parts in the microwave, finding the “blood feast” quite delish. So much that he starts killing hookers so he keep his cannibalistic cuisine going, sharing it with his unsospecting coworkers, even.

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The Spooktacular Eight #11: The Corpse Grinders (1971)

Let’s celebrate this Halloween (and adjacent) season with some aged cheese and wine, picking from the prolific film portfolio of good ol’ Ted V “step on me ass with stilettos please” Mikels, may his toy robot laden soul (and his mustache too) rest in peace.

We’re doing one of his more notorious ones too, the one that’s not Girl In Gold Boots nor the cheap plastic zombie masks classic, The Astro Zombies.

Yep, it’s time to go King Crimson (the band) on your culinary habits and unseal a can of killer cat movie (again), which if nothing else it’s a refresher in how making great posters that are way BETTER than the movies they advertise has always been a thing for exploitation flicks since forever, and not just a modern thing. The more things change, the more some don’t, i guess.

Seriously, if you expect to see anything as graphic (or disturbing) as what the poster depicting you’re dreaming, because that would be accurate and require money to make effects for, and this ain’t just the style or budget good ol’ Ted V. Mikels was known for.

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The Spooktacular Eight #10: Robo Vampire (1988)

Oh boy. THIS one.

Quite the legendary trash film from Godfrey Ho (credited as Thomas Tang, once again), one that definitely lives up to its status as one of the most bonkers heaps of garbage to ever come out of the 80s never ending cauldron of action-xploitation movies.

It’s definitely quite infamous and rightfully so, because even if you’re acquainted with Godfrey Ho, Joseph Lai, their companies like Filmark International and IFD Arts, this is still absolute hokum of majestic proportions, downright unbelievable and baffling.

I can’t even imagine how much cocaine did Ho and his unnamed writers snort up for this one in particular, because it makes their cut n paste ninja flicks look downright sensible and composed.

The main reason it’s because Ho (or Lai, or whoever supervised the scripts, hard to say when Ho is credited for many films he didn’t even direct) didn’t bother to say no to anything proposed, i refuse to believe anything got cut from the script since it’s all a non-sensical demented mish mash.

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The Spooktacular Eight #9: Blood Rage (1987)

Some of you might wonder why i’m doing it now, why i’m not waiting for late november to review adequately unknown slasher flick Blood Rage, as it’s often regarded as a “holiday slasher” due to taking place during Thanksgiving, hence its lumped alongside 1981’s Home Sweet Home and Thankskilling (yes, sadly that’s not just a fake trailer anymore) as one of the very few Thanksgiving themed horror movies.

First, i’m not American so i frankly don’t care, second, this is a movie that might have had a cult following of sorts, or just be remembered a bit more if it leaded into the movie taking place at Thanksgiving, instead of just having people talk about Thanksgiving dinner in like 3 lines?

Then again, i don’t think it would have mattered much, sure, it does have people at a table eating turkey, Thanksgiving is mentioned more than once in the script, but even the fact it’s set during the aforementioned holiday… really doesn’t matter to the plot at all , which isn’t a problem per se, but seems like a missed marketing opportunity, hence it’s not surprising that not many people remember either this and the aforementioned Home Sweet Home from 1981.

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Dead Island: Definitive Edition PS4 [REVIEW] #deadislandretrospective

I started playing this mid-summer for kicks, but what do you know, in early september Dead Island 2 actually resurfaced after 8 years of radio silence, multiple developers change, and it’s coming out… in February 2023. Odd date, but i guess Deep Silver isn’t keen on waiting for a timely summer release, after the game overlong stay in development hell, so much that Techland spun another zombie series after basically being denied work on any Dead Island game after Riptide.

Perfect time for a retrospective of the series as a whole, so let’s start from the original Dead Island, in its Definitive Edition form (which on PS4 and X-Box One came packaged as a collection with the direct sequel Riptide and the spin-off Dead Island: Retro Revenge included).

We’re reviewing this version also because i’ve played Dead Island on PS3 when it was new… and this was indeed one of those games that could have used some enhancing and overhauling, etc.

I guess some history won’t go amiss, but if you happened to… not exist in 2012, you missed one of the most perfect example of misleading, bullshit hype trailers ever made, as originally we were fed a non-gameplay trailer that went for shock value (depicting a dead zombie child, among other things), trying to make you believe the game would treat the topic with some seriousness… only to find out Deep Silver were just being the deceitful liars they are, as we had a game where you combine shit to make fire-laden blades and battery-powered electrical pikes, with a slow-mo effect for when you decapite the plentiful undeads, or crush their rotten brains under your foot.

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Student Bodies (1981) [REVIEW] | Comedy Dies Tonight

In the spirit of school season, here’s a rewrite for Student Bodies, the 1981 slasher parody direct by Mickey Rose (writer of Woody Allen’ Bananas and Van Dyke And Company, among others) and Micheal Ritche (Bad News Bears, Wildcats, The Golden Child), which is notable for being the first movie to parody the then rising slasher genre, which at the time had success stories like Halloween and Prom Night.

It’s an interesting artifact of the era, which is why this isn’t so much a rewrite but a new review built from scratch (i did cover it years ago in one of my italian blogs, FIY), despite the fact this movie would have deserved me just unearthing and traslating my old review with barely any edits, but its historical importance it’s enough for me to overlook the fact i kinda hate it a lot.

After all, it’s something to have modern movies take the piss of the slasher subgenre, so i’ll have to give Student Bodies some credit for being the first of its kind, decades before Scary Movie and its spawn run the parody subgenre to the fucking ground (with the internet age subsequiently making them redundant as big studio productions you went to see in theathers), and here you’re kinda looking at the genesis of those misbegotten films, an ancient prototype if you will.

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