[EXPRESSO] Escape Room (2019) | Playing Games, Makin’ Names

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NOT to be confused with the omonynous 2017 movie directed by Will Wernick, which i didn’t see (it was supposed to screen in my country just before this one, but i guess it didn’t, at all).

Anyway, “Escape Room 2019” is about six vastly different individuals that receive a strange cube containing the invitation to an exclusive escape room by a company named Minos. After they all gather in a waiting room, they soon realize the game has already started, and the team must scramble and work together to solve the riddles and proceed to the next room, in what soon appear to be challenges with one goal: survival, at any cost.

It’s basically a non-horror (kinda, there’s some blood, but not gore) take on Saw, which i like even if it’s quite obvious, since here we also have a team of people that seems random at first (but isn’t, at all), and we see them try to cooperate (or not) for a common goal of surviving a deadly challenge of intellect and action, set up for unknown reasons by a misterious, evil mastermind, watching from the shadows.

Heck, even the way it starts is so typical of Saw. 😉

But it’s better than most of the late entries in the Saw franchise, it’s a better written movie than the disappointing Saw: Legacy/Jigsaw we got back in 2017, and it’s actually better than expected, with some surprises, good atmosphere, and mostly decent-to-good performances.

What stops it from being “good”/more than decent is the characterization, with some characters never actually growing out of the clichè they seem at first, and the shameless (but kinda “honest”) way it sets up a sequel, one in what Sony wants to be an annualized franchise. Again, like Saw, which isn’t a promising scenario.

We’ll see, i guess.

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[EXPRESSO] Blood: The Last Vampire (2009) | Live Action Mehstruction

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Live-action adaptations of animated works are quite the oddity.

Fans are usually against it because “it’s pointless”, but even so it’s hard to fully repress any curiosity, and it’s a way to stir up some interest in an IP.

In this case, it’s adapted from the omonymous 2000 Production IG film, a coproduction between french company Pathè and Hong Kong company Edko, directed by Chris Nahon.

The basic plot is mostly the same: Saya is an half vampire half human that hunts down “proper vampires” for a shadowy organization, that helps her by providing supplies for the killings. It’s still set in an American army base, but there’s also this whole backstory of shape shifting “demons” that in the 16th centhury took human shape to live between us (using the bloodshed of that period to their advantage), and Saya being the daughter of a legendary demon hunter, slain by the vile demon Onigen.

Also, she has to basically babysit Alice, the daughter of an american army general, after she saves her from vampires monsters disguised as school bullies. Yeah, while some scenes from the anime film are replicated, the plot changes and add things just to fill time between the decent action scenes, definitely the best parts of the movie, despite being very clearly made by a Hong Kong company, not very japanese.

It honestly feels like the plot was written for a tv series or a videogame based on Blood The Last Vampire, and then reused here, it has that cheap feeling to it. Apart from that, the movie is watchable, but it’s kinda shit, with laughably bad and clichè as hell dialogue, some stupid scenes, mediocre acting, inconsistent quality of the special effects, and a really anti-climatic final confrontation.

Oh, and the title is a lie. It is.

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[EXPRESSO] Temple (2017) | The J-Horror Clichès Shitsoup

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(BTW, this ISN’T the horror movie review i alluded to, this is a freebie)

I already did this one in my italian blog, but it’s quite the fun movie….. to review, and nothing else.

Mind you, if you saw the poster, you may expect some level of quality, since it’s “from the writer of You’Re Next and Blair Witch (2016)”, Simon Barrett, but it doesn’t tell you it’s directed by Michael Barrett (maybe a relative?), a cinematographer.

I didn’t knew any of this when i stumbled across it through Netflix “horror” catalogue (never even heard of it before), and – ultimately – it doesn’t matter.

Temple proclaims to be a movie, but i have the feel the director went to Japan to stock up on Gunplas, and while he was here, he decided to throw together a bunch of j-horror cliches and call it a film, not that it actually matters if it takes place in Japan or not (even more since everything else is distinctly american).

The plot: a couple and a childhood friend of the gal (yeah, it’s uncomfortable) go to Japan because she wants to finish her thesis on occult sacred grounds or something, they find out of a temple that the locals avoid like the plague, go there, and they get attacked by something, who the fuck knows for sure.

And i mean it, since the movie, on top of scarcely reaching the 70 minutes mark (and being comatosely boring all the way), filled with “just woke up” performances, being stock beyond belief (even if tried it couldn’t be more trite), for its climax can’t decide between the “there actually were monsters” or the “dude allucinated and did the killings himself” endings, so it does both and none at the same time.

It’s quite impressive how much nothing is in this film.

Just worthless, pointless, even if you wanna watch a bad horror movie.

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A Star Is Born rapid thoughts and upcoming stuff

I don’t have the time to do even an Expresso review of A Star Is Born, so i’m just gonna say this: i didn’t knew it was a “remake” of an older movie (which i never heard about before), but i was favorably surprised, it’s really, really good. The last act was kinda slow, but still, i encourage you go see it in theathers (or catch it later on VOD, here in Italy premiered 3 days ago), even if you’re not big on this kind of story, because i sure as hell wasn’t.

That said, i have an Expresso review of something more proper for the month, and maybe something special, something extreme…

[EXPRESSO] Muse (2017) | Dry Paint?

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Samuel Salomon is a literature professor, that has taken a 1 year break from work since the tragic death of his wife. On top of the grief, he has a recurring nightmare of a woman being killed in a strange ritual, and eventually finds out that the woman in his nightmare has been found dead in the same exact circumstances.

He sneaks on the crime scene and there meets Rachel, a woman who also had the same identical nightmare day after day. The two set out to discover the identity of the mysterious victim, and in their research they learn of the Muses, the ancient deities of greek mithology that have been said to inspire artists since the beginning of mankind, and their dark secrets.

By the same director of (most of, anyway) the [REC] series, which doesn’t mean anything to me, since i never saw any movie from that series, or any movie directed by Jaume Balaguerò before this one.

And…. it’s ok. It has Christopher Lloyd, which is a plus (even though this means bugger all, since The Oogieloves could make the same exact claim), the subject is quite interesting (definitely more than Down A Dark Hall, which has more in common with this one than expected), the acting is quite good, the set design is nice, the horror mithology built around the actual myth of the Muses it’s not bad at all.

So, it sound like it could be a good one, but the execution just feels kinda flat, and in the third act the movie drops so many twist and revelations on the viewer that is kinda suffocating, they make sense (mostly), but it doesn’t change the lack of any sense of urgency, danger, or dread for most of the film. Which is a problem.

It’s alright.

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[EXPRESSO] Hereditary (2018) | Creepy Clutters

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Some horrors movies don’t live up to their potential due to the director and/or screenwriter lack of ambition or simple awareness of what they can actually do.

Hereditary isn’t bound by such restraint, as it tries to be a bit The Exorcist, a bit The Wicker Man, a bit Poltergeist, all framed within a story about a family that is hit by misfortunes after the death of Ellen Leich, the grandmother and matriarch of sorts. And it almost succedees in doing that. Almost.

The main problem is that the movie is inconsistent in a way that’s almost clockwork, with tonal shifts all over the place, intense scenes with good atmosfere (and great horror movie lighting) followed by other that become inadvertly comical, since the director often just lets the actor go on, even if it means ruining an otherwise good segment with overacting and unvolontary goofiness.

Then, there’s the fact the script isn’t good, with most of the subplots that ultimately go nowhere (the twist in the first act is just for shock value, ultimately doesn’t add to anything), with rules about the supernatural hastly estabilished, incoherent and lacking, and a with a final act that throws any logic to the dogs, and tries to wow you with visuals that ….are not even that impressive.

It’s frustrating, because the movie works great when it focuses on what it does best, the family drama, the acting is quite good (enough to save otherwise laughable scenes), but it’s such a mess, and wastes opportunities, like using the handmade models about family events (created by the mother).

Even though this clearly ISN’T the case, Hereditary feels like a family drama that wasn’t intended to be a horror movie, and was rewritten to that end.

It’s not terrible or bad, it’s just disappointing. Sighs

NOTES: for total disclosure, i watched the movie with an italian dub (being Italian and having access to cinemas here, makes sense to me), a week later than the official release date here (25 july 2018).

EXPRESSO reviews coming soon!

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If you like short reviews more, well, i’ll be posting them via my “EXPRESSO” column, you can learn more in the dedicated page, but it’s basically 300 words long review, with a coffee themed vote. We’ll be starting tomorrow (or today, depending where you are right now) with the Expresso review of “Hereditary”, which came out not too long ago in italian cinemas.

Bye!