[EXPRESSO] Imaginary (2024) | Polterbear

Soo…. Blumhouse recent cinematic output that isn’t M3GAN has been quite the slop drop, and Imaginary is not gonna change that, but to my slight surprise, this is not as outright shit as Night Swim, despite both feeling like “january horror film releases”.

This time we deal with the idea of “imaginary friends” conjured up by children, and we focus on a children book’s author, Jessica, married to a musician named Max, that move back into Jessica’s childhood home, with the daughters from Max’s previous marriage, Alice and Taylor, in tow.

As Jessica struggles to connect with her new stepdaughters, keeps having nightmare of her insane father, Ben, and her children book’s characters, Alice finds a teddy bear in the basement and becomes attached to it to a creepy degree, while an elderly neighbour called Gloria approaches Jessica and shares memories of her childhood, which Jessica doesn’t seem to remember at all….

It doesn’t sound original, and it isn’t, ticking every box in the “supernatural horror with children and dolls” category, and since it’s a Blumhouse release, there’s gotta be an overemphasis on jump scares over trying to build some creepy atmosphere, some decent acting lost to one-note characters, and this case a script with some promise that ultimately is bogged down by too much worldbuilding and “Blumhouse claptrap”, so to say.

BUT i’ll say that it does pull a decent little twist halfway through, and the last act shows some creatitivity to the visuals, some ideas that give some needed energy to the trite formula, and it helps elevating it from being a total, predictable and boring shitfest, thought a bit frustrating since there was some potential to it, but instead it’s just a passable, if middling and instantly forgettable supernatural horror film by the ol’ “House Of Blum”.

Gargantua (1998) [REVIEW] #giantmonstermarch

The very – and this case literal – enbodiment of “we have Godzilla at home”, though it’s american-flavoured Godzilla given the production and the year it came out, one year that lives in infamy for the Godzilla faithful, but wait, there’s actually more as this is also kinda E.T., guess the echoes of Nukie and Mac & Me made the idea survive till the very end of the millennium itself.

And speaking of rip-offs it’s not totally incorrect since this TV movie premiered the very same day early screening for 1998 Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla were held, so yeah, it is not a victim of circumstances or a project in production before that was hurried to “compete” (by trying to come out first in hope of fooling the less informed, as usual) with an upcoming big budget Hollywood film that happened to have a similar plot or subject matter.

Still, i think “rip-off” might be too strong a word, since it doesn’t even really tries to do emulate the Roland Emmerich movie, and it’s actually closer to Gorgo or Gappa (as there are more of the monster siblings and parents), because it does involve the “momma monster” coming of the seabed to retrieve “da baby” from an enclosure of sorts, in this case though it because underwater quakes made possible for some amphibious giant reptilian creatures to show up on the beaches of Malau, Hawaii, where a marine biologist has brought along his son for work and to hopefully process the recent loss of the mother.

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[EXPRESSO] Night Swim (2024) | “Get Out Of My Friggin’ Pool!”

Based on a short film of the same name by director Bryce McGuire, Night Swim is the kind of horror film that actually speaks for itself very clearly since it’s what the trailer (kinda ) made it look like, as in it’s a movie about a haunted pool.

The premise sees a family move in to a new house as the father, a baseball star whose career got cut short by a degenerative illness, forcing him to an early retirement. Still secretly hoping to get back into the Major Leagues, he decides to clean up the pool as he thinks will be good for his rehab and be fun for his kids too, unaware of the house’ dark secrets……

It almost feels like an accidental american remake of a Japanese horror film from the 2000s, like someone by pure coincidence remade 2002’s Dark Water (again), or somewhere along those lines, despite not actually being that kind of movie, as the lore get explained it’s hard not to see it that way, because despite the stupid-ish sounding premise, something could have been done with it that’s not subpar, weak cluster of cliches.

Silly as “haunted pool” sounds-is, the water-centric scenario could have been used to some effect, and there’s effort to make it work as a serious horror film, but it doesn’t help that the result it’s something that makes you whip out your theasurus to avoid saying “it’s shallow/lukewarm”, despite it being that insipid and ineffective, with accidental “anti-jumpscares”, stock characters, the lack on any proper atmosphere, or anything that hasn’t already been done way better before.

It’s just “not enough” in any regard, while also being “too much”.

[EXPRESSO] The Iron Claw (2023) | Dynasty Warriors

Wrestling films are nothing new, but sure as hell i’m more curious when we have A24 distribute a wrestling film, but aside from that initial marketing hook, there’s actually a fascinating tale here that i feel isn’t famous or overly familiar to most outside of the wrestling community, because i have a very passing interest in the thing and i didn’t know the story of this wrestling family at all.

The Iron Claw tells the story of the Von Eirich family, with the father Fritz gathering notoriety in Texas and adjacent wrestling leagues (his signature move being the titular “Iron Claw” head grab) in the early 80s, and him basically founding a wrestling dynasty, as he trains all his sons to be wrestlers themselves, subjecting them to a strict training all together, so one day the belt of world wrestling champion will fall in the hand of the family, and also to make them stronger, tougher, in the hope they don’t get hit by the so called “curse” that struck all the previous Von Eirich family members.

While it focuses mostly on the oldest surviving son, Kevin (Zac Efron), the movie tells of the family ascension through the ranks of the violently competitive business of professional wrestling, the behind the scenes side of the sport in its pre-corporate era, its victories and the human toll that the father’s quest for his wrestling dynasty demands, due to his constant pushing for supremacy at all costs that he allegedly did to avoid the very same tragedies that ultimately befall his children.

The cast (including a truly transformed Zac Efron) is nothing short of stellar, the performances amazing, and the emotional punch delivered by the emphasis on tragedy doesn’t preclude some positive light shining and breaking through the toxic deadlock of their “fate”.

12 Days Of Dino Dicember #34: Dino King: Journey To Fire Mountain (2019)

I was a bit anxious when i saw the poster for this sequel to The Dino King pushing the Lion King vibes even more obviously, let alone the very “Land Before Time”-feeling cover for the UK DVD release, implying a more kid-friendly sequel.

And my fears were kinda confirmed when i noticed the cast… as in, the first movie had a “fake cast” at the end listing the various types of dinosaurs appearing in the film, since the creatures didn’t speak and the dialogues were offered as a post-humous narration by the titular protagonist.

It was a fairly unique thing for these dinosaur movies also aimed at kids, the combo of mostly non-humanized animals that don’t actually talk like people, even with the narration acting as a compromise… which is dropped entirely by the sequel, Dino King: Journey To Fire Mountain.

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12 Days Of Dino Dicember # 31: The Dino King AKA Speckles The Tarbosaurus (2012)

Time for a little trip to South Korea, though this time we aren’t going back to the 90s like for Tyranno’s Claw, just back to the early 2010s, where after the success of a two parter documentary movie about dinosaurs in the Korean peninsula, Tarbosaurus: The Mighiest Ever, director-writer Han Sang-Ho decided – helped by Avatar making popular the 3D fad again – to follow that up with a computer animated feature film

I actually own the UK DVD release, going under The Dino King title, and at least this specific release has the english dub only on it, no korean audio with english subtitle options.

One of my few gripes with the movie actually lies there, as the movie opts for no talking animals in the Disney stile, BUT we have the main protagonist narrating over the events of his life, but in the english dub the voice for him as a youngling tarbosaurus (which is in the same family of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, FIY) has that “4KIDS dub of a toy anime from the late 90s”, like i’m fully expecting to hear a secondary dinosaurs explain some obscure effect of a Yu-Gi-Oh card to the viewer for no diegetical reason whatosver.

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[EXPRESSO] Home Education (2023) | Bone Flute Lullaby

I’ve discussed the stigma attached to modern italian horror movies before, but despite the fact there’s very little horror movies that get made and get some kind of theathrical release (or even a streaming one), despite those that manage to emerge being often pretty bad and/or confusingly disinterested in being horror movies to begin with… it’s worth giving them a shot, because sometimes you do get a movie like Home Education, written and directed by Andrea Niada.

The premise centers about a weird family living in the middle of the woods, with the father passing down/indoctrinating his family in his esoteric cultish beliefs, so much that when he dies, the daughter and mother preserve his body and perform a series of obscure rituals (including the daughter using a bone flute to search for her father’s soul) as they think that in doing so and believing, REALLY believing in them, the father will come back from the world of the dead.

The mother especially pushes these beliefs on her daughter, whom she home schools, but the friendship with a young metal head boy will make the daughter question everything that she was taught, proving to be a potential obstacle for the resurrection ritual….

It’s a creepy and far from banal premise that does not go where you’d think it will, it manages to feel constantly creepy, with a great atmosphere, some solid and stylized effects that “give away” this having some financial baking, as it’s well presented but actually manages to make the most out of a limited number of characters, few locations, that limited but “effective if used right” deal, which the movie nails, making you on edge and guessing up until the great ending.

A really damn good surprise, one worth watching if/when it gets distributed outside of Italy.

Pinocchi-O-Rama #11: Pinocchio AKA The Erotic Adventures Of Pinocchio (1971)

If you go to the Wikipedia page for the original Pinocchio book, you will notice many entries in the Films and Related sections.

As the time of writing, there’s a notable omission, as in, The Erotic Adventures Of Pinocchio, made in 1971, directed by Corey Allen, one that i swore was in the Wikipedia page before, and one i knew about long before Wikipedia was even a thing.

One that i knew will have to eventually be featured here, and as much i pushed it back down the list for Pinocchiorama… i don’t wanna talk about it around Christmas (and/or equivalent festivies), and i promised some variety to this retrospective, so time to get soft… core.

I mean, let’s get this clear right away: this is a soft-core porn parody of Pinocchio, one that was bound to eventually exist anyway due to the character phallicular nosejobbery.

On the flipside, i don’t have to worry about blackboxing any of the screenshots, so…

For various reasons, one would expect what’s basically a porno spoof to reinvent the original material in a comedic und sexual fashion, though “reinvent” implies a level of creativity that might be a little above crap like Gums, the bar isn’t much higher but we can get lower, down to the abyss of the Super Hornio Bros movies (yes plural) or stuff that the Cinema Snob has reviewed in bucket loads, gaining the unenviable nightmares of a female ET or the cardiatic arrest of a Strokemon.

Knowledge isn’t always benevolent, after all, hopefully the aforementioned paragraph does not trigger any ‘Nam flashback in you, or sparks some morbose tendency.

Who can really say….

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[EXPRESSO] Thanksgiving (2023) | Grum Not Included

It’s taken a lot of time, but even more of those “fake trailers for exploitation movies that don’t exist” shown on the Grindhouse are now a reality. 16 years later (12 after Hobo With A Shotgun actual feature film) Eli Roth has come back to make the “slasher Thanksgiving” film reality.

Makes sense, since there are no real notable “Thanksgiving” horror films that are slashers AND actually about Thanksgiving. again, Blood Rage doesn’t count, and i’d rather forget about Thankskilling, the movie unbothered to imply killer turkey cunnilingus. So let’s.

In a way, Thanksgiving it’s nothing special in itself, as in it’s a holiday slasher that starts on a fateful Thanksgiving day in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where a bunch of crazed holiday shoppers go mental while waiting for a Black Friday nighttime opening sale, ultimately smashing into the place, causing damages, many wounded and even some dead.

1 year later the protagonist teens that were on the scene (among others) get tagged on social media by a mysterious individual setting up a dinner table with their names on it, and eventually people are being killed by a mysterious murderer donning a pilgrim get-up and one of the many John Carver masks the city hands out by the bucketloads for the holiday.

There’s plenty of that…. “peculiar” Eli Roth style of dialogues and characterizations, but it fits the grindhouse tone, it definitely lives up to the gore you expect from an exploitation horror flick (no nudity though, oddly enough), the retro yet modern style it goes for it’s actually well crafted, embracing the absurd and stupid overall concept (death by black friday stampede is what sets the massacre off, after all), i honestly think it pretty much does everything it could with it.

Some primo dumb but hugely entertaining holiday slasher romp.

[EXPRESSO] The Creator (2023) | We Are The Robots

Somehow managed to see this one in theathers, despite its last minute marketing that made it feel like it kinda came out of nowhere, odd for a mid-to-high budget sci-fi epic from director Gareth Edwards (Monsters, Godzilla 2014, Rogue One).

Though i can see why as the trailer, the first way most people likely even learnt of this movie existing, literally tells you the first big reveal, which doesn’t really make this look or sound particularly original or impressive, a sentiment that’s ultimately correct but it’s not entirely “fair”.

The plot of The Creator deals with a future where humans and “IA humans” coexist in peace, until a nuke goes off, starting a war between the US based NOMAD military and the robots. An ex-NOMAD agent tasked to retrieve the superweapon developed from the “IA front”, only to find that the “weapon” is actually an IA/robot child.

There’s clearly ambition and scope, but for something that sets out to be a big budget sci-fi that wants to bring something new to familiar themes and subjects…. it doesn’t really manage that, comes close but ultimately will just remind you of other sci-fi movies that it takes inspiration from, especially Children Of Men via District 9 with a Vietnam movie style narrative.

Especially as it doesn’t really invent anything than hasn’t been done before (and better) with its themes and concepts, there are some clever ideas but don’t amount to much of real substance, not helped by somewhat uninteristing characters and repetitive action.

It’s still a decent watch, the acting is solid, direction is good and this is NOT an uninspired film, but it’s such a case where its various elements never fully come together as they could and it never really lives up to its own ambition, despite obvious genuine effort.