[EXPRESSO] Nosferatu (2024) | Orlok Spelled Forward

I have been waiting for this one a LOT, i made no mistery of it, and why should i?

Robert Eggers doing a remake/new version of horror silent classic Nosferatu, i shouldn’t even need to add more than that. And i won’t.

But yes, it might sound strange to younger horror fans, it’s a new version of an early unauthorized Dracula adaptation that was considered lost for decades, only to resurface and become a silent horror film classic on its own, so i guess there’s little point discussing the plot too much, it’s literally Dracula.

I mean, there’s no denying around that, but Eggers version actually manages the near impossible, as it captures the original film dreamlike quality while also giving it a new spin to the material (while also featuring most of the classic scenes of Dracula adaptations), going for a psychosexual horror thriller that on the surface might remind some of Coppola’s Dracula adaptation, while there’s no baroque romanticism, over the top hairdos or extra fancy costumes.

This count Orlok is a fuckin disgusting, feral beast with a sexual appetite stronger than death, an obsessive lust that never betrays any empathy behind the desire itself of this cursed cadaver and whoever is unfortunate enought to be in its path to obtain it.

I mean, it sounds like an obvious perfect match of a movie to (re)do for a renowed director that specializes in bleak gothic horror thrillers, and i’m just gonna cut the shit, Nosferatu lives up to the high expectations it reasonably fostered since it was announced, in pretty much every regard, and yes, the amazing cast features yet again William Dafoe (and a great Nicholas Hoult) after The Lighthouse.

Intense, repulsive and beautifully bleak, an amazing film and a great remake as well.

Highly recommended.

Final Verdict: Java

[EXPRESSO] The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim (2024) | Anime Lord Of The Mononoke Rings

Disclaimer: i haven’t really followed/properly engaged with the Lords Of The Rings IP basically since… the original film trilogy.

But yes, when WB puts out in theathers an animated feature lenght Lords Of The Rings movie directed by Kenji Kamiyama (GITS: Stand Alone Complex, Eden Of The East, Napping Princess, GITS Stand Alone Complex 2045, Blade Runner: Black Lotus) in anime style, my interest is EXTREMELY piqued.

Taking place 183 years before the original film trilogy, the story concerns the destiny of the Helm House, as Helm Hammerhand suffers from internal strife and is then attacked by the wild tribes in the region, united by a vengeful man named Wulf, that leads them to war, with the Helm princess Hera at the forefront, eventually forced to hole themselves in the fortress of Hornburg, that would become known as Helm’s Deep.

It’s a weird combination because there’s a lot of might and barely any magic or fantasy stuff in this LOTR animated film, the animation by Sola Entertaiment (a not so random but still weird choice) it’s honestly kinda lackluster, as they have 2D animation overlayed on CGI backgrounds that opt for some kind of high fidelity “realism”, when it’s not just cheap 3D CG, or 3D CG passing as 2D animation, with a very inconsistent quality and the feeling this was kinda rushed.

The characters being so and so and the story having to retrofit and connect with later LOTR events don’t help, but i will say direction is quite solid, even with the animation issues and uneven quality it does deliver on the spectactle and pomp, it’s still enganging and very entertaining that its long runtime doesn’t bog it down.

A decent movie, even if it’s a weird yet familiar attempt to mine the LOTR IP to the bone.

12 Days Of Dino Dicember #48: I Am T-Rex (2022)

Time to close off this year’s 12 Days Of Dino Dicember with a family/children dinosaur movie, one ailing from mainland China and also fairly recent, as in released originally in 2022 as “Wo shi ba wang long”(which i assume translates to “The Tyrannosaurus Rex”, as can be seen in its original Chinese theathrical poster) but localized/released online with the “I Am T-Rex” title.

It’s also a CG animated film, because we already had plenty of no budget puppet dinosaurs, some high quality (and some low ass quality) dinosaur stop motion animation, caveman boning of the implied kind, cannibal movies sold as dinosaur flicks, pseudodocumentaries, dinosaur comedies with yellowface or comedy bits that aged like the reptiles themselves, so for the sake of variety, let’s move away from all that shizzle.

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12 Days Of Dino Dicember #46: The Last Dragon AKA Dragon’s World: A Fantasy Made Real (2004)

We don’t really review dinosaur documentaries for 12 Days Of Dino Dicember, we haven’t yet, i guess the closest we did was the Walking With Dinosaurs film, but that wasn’t a documentary, and neither is today’s subject, 2004’s The Last Dragon, also known as Dragons: A Fantasy Made Reality or Dragon’s World: Fantasy Made Real, a docufiction movie made for TV (specifically for the British publicly owned Channel Four) and directed by Justin Hardy.

As to why we’re talking about a docufiction film about dragons during our dinosaur films retrospective… it’s that i feel it’s close enough in subject, dinosaurs do factor in to the argument, and the occasion is as good as any.

Also, after being duped into watching and reviewing a sub par italian cannibal flick without dinosaurs, i feel excluding this one wouldn’t quite be fair, in a way.

In terms of what it’s actually about, its what the title and the genre implies, as in, a speculative docudrama that labors on the hypothetical situation of dragons not being things of fantasy or a Pokemon type, but actual creatures that existed, speculating their evolution from the Cretaceous period up to the 15^th centhury in regular scientific fashion by basing the idea on how widespread and ubiquitous was the dragon in any kind of mythology around the world, implying there was actual truth in the legends.

In fairly typical docufiction fashion, it sets out to do so by alternating between CG recreations of “dragosauruses” in their speculated natural habitat throughout history and the live action story of a modern paleontologist, Dr. Jack Tanner, whom works at a museum and believes in dragons, having his interest piqued when he learns that the frozen remains of an unknown creature have been discovered in the Carpathian Mountains, alongside many carbonized human bodies.

So, with two collagues of his, Tanner travels to Romania to examine the creature, and possibly salvage his reputation by actually finding and proving you found an actual dragon of the non-maid variety, so he can shows those miscreants that Falkor didn’t die for our sins in vain.

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[EXPRESSO] Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (2024) | Chaos Control(led)

Time for Shadow to enter the fray, in the third live action Sonic The Hedgehog film.

The plot sees Sonic and his friends Tails and Knuckles summoned to fight a new menace, Shadow, a nother powerful alien hedgehog that was sealed away for the last 50 years in a remote prison, until someone freed him, framing the defeated and basically retired Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik as the culprit, so the trio has to team up with the “Eggster” to find what is going on..

The first one was ok, the second i liked more and felt was a step up from the previous one, and once again this is an improvement, upping the stakes, introducing new characters , managing to pick up the right/good elements from the videogame series (Sonic Adventure 2 in this case) and use them well in this new narrative, committing to its 90s ‘tude even more by having Jim Carrey go full Dumb And Dumber as he plays two characters, both “Eggman” and his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, doubling the slapstick ham and sillyness, for better or worse.

Honestly, i do enjoy Carrey doing some of his old schtick, even if it’s a bit too much at times.

Also, the effects and CG for Sonic and friends are top notch, arguably the best they’vee ever been, seamlessly blended, he action delivers some fun corny “DBZ but even more for kids” fights, and it does manage to be silly and referential but without being grating, even for adults.

While i find it to be a quite decent kids film, honestly it’s about as good as a Sonic live action filn could have been, in both spirit and form, and while the post ending credits scenes tease of more, it is the cap of a trilogy, providing some closure indeed.

Ye Old Remaster Wsihslsti (for Saint Nick)

A bonus round, meant for the previous “draught”, but it still isn’t Christmas, as Mr. Wright would point out, so enjoy!

Since the industry is experiencing the inevitable resource creep and is eventually forced right now to reap what they sow, as the new consoles “have no games” because mainstream big budget videogames have pigeonholed themselves into a situation where is too expensive and takes too long to even make one of these (emulating the big budget cinema industry they wanted so much to be to a tee), remasters have been the way too go.

Old crap with new paint or fixes to the rope itself takes still less than making a new game from scratch, is easy as you can cater to the evergrowing nostalgia market (due to the gaming populace aging because natural entropy is a thing and your flesh will fail you, eventually) longing for ages long gone, be it the Atari early days or the mascote platformer craze of the 90s, you can safely bet on an already established name, and the market is big enough that even obscure shit like Felix The Cat videogames of yore and Bubsy can get a collection with improvements, quality of feature, and shady publishers like Piko Interactive can publish in 2022 (on Steam at the moment, with console releases coming) a somehow buggier, worse looking version of Glover than when it launched on Nintendo 64. In 1998.

Be it collections of enhanced ports or remasters that just update the graphical side of things, the public craves and buys these for a variety of reasons, publishers are more than happy as it cheaper all together, so in the spirit of the time i will be dotting down my own wishlist of remasters/ports/re-releases that i would like to see.

Order is casual, btw.

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Elves (1989) [REVIEW] | Nazicest Gobbo-Grizzly Conspiracy

This is a quasi-well known one, it has a certain reputation, but i’m willing to cover it anyway because it’s still one of the strangest fuckin horror film i’ve ever seen, it’s still unique, as in “who the hell comes up with this stuff” kind of unique, sure as shit there’s nothing quite as absurd, even with the plenty batshit delirium that comes with vintage holiday horror films, Christmas related or not.

It’s just not everyday you get a movie about Christmas elves that’s also about Nazis, has a demonic conspiracy to breed the Aryan “Master Race” which involves incest and blood rituals, and just calling it “Elves” it’s a great Trojan-horsing manouver, how the fuck can one expect this level of obscene and absurd with such a simple, direct title?

It’s a deranged mish mash in many ways than you both and would not assume, because you’d expect a creature feature movie following in the vein of Gremlins, like Critters, Ghoulies, Munchies… and to an extend that is correct, as we’ll see later.

Strap in, because we’re in for quite the ride, one that Dan Haggerty (of The Life and Times Of Grizzly Adams’ fame) wasn’t happy to partake in one bit, despite being the protagonist, as sometimes you can almost see his genuine stunned yet unamused, baffled reaction to the dialogues he’s forced to hear coming from the other actors’ mouths.

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[EXPRESSO] Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom (2024) | Lichdom: Battlemage

After the 4^th season of the anime, we got a Overlord film, depicting the Sacred/Holy Kingdom Arc that was discussed/teased but not shown during Season 4 itself.

For reference, the series is about a regular guy that get stuck in a VR MMORPG when the servers close, as its character, Momonga, an elder lich, with previous NPCs start acting on their own, including the servants/characters made by his fellow guild members basically electing him as supreme leader, and he’s basically forced to live up to their expectations while plotting schemes for world domination as the Overlord.

The plot here sees Momonga/Ainz Ooal Gown, finally having established its territory and himself as the “Sorcerer King” getting into an alliance with the Sacred Kingdom, needing help to slay the Demon Emperor Jaldabaoth that’s attacking them with his hordes of humanoid monsters..

Again, this is as about as good a synopsis as it gets without doing huge spoilers, and while it strikes a good compromise between being watchable on its own, since the story here presented (picking up the previously established but basically ignored “Jaldabaoth” storyline) has mostly original characters, provides enough closure, and you can guess/deduce some things… having context for the characters and situations definitely benefits the experience (since it doesn’t recap shit, just giving a very brief text explanation of the premise), which does deliver on both the spectacle, violence and some honestly fun, enjoyable “anime isekai non-sense”, including fantasy politics.

I was worried the animation might had the “CG-isms” seen in later Season 3 and Season 4… not as much, the animation isn’t notably better but you can tell there’s a bump in quality and direction to take advantage of it being a film, more battles to show the animation off, etc.

Quite satisfied with it, i must say.

The Super Ninja (1984) [REVIEW] | “Do You Remember, The 21th Night Of September?” Ninjas

Since this is also kind of a “ninja month” for me, time to dwelve deep back into the cut n paste ninjaexploitation we love to discuss here so much…. or is it really this time?

I mean, the movie it’s called The Super Ninja( but you can also find it titled as “Ninja Force”), it does have a different and confirmed director name on both IMDB and the Hong Kong Movie Database, it does fit the bill of a primo subject for the “Godfrey Ho cut-n-paste” treatment… but it’s NOT mostly made out of a different yet similar Taiwanese or Korean chrime thriller, there’s no stock footage lifted.

So, did i make a mistake, assuming this was another Godfrey Ho/Joseph Lai joing when it’s a completely random, stock footage-free ninja flick from the era that just happened to exist and get paired with IFD Films International’s output of super cheap ninja regigs of older, random asian films about crime, guns, or whatever

Because it was distributed under the other company name by Ho and Lai, Filmark International… and then just watching will trigger every flight or fight response by ninja film buffs, because it looks, feels and it’s even edited like the cut-n-paste colored ninja collages, but there’s no recognizable name in the credits that would make the connections made sense and obvious.

Then i found the name “Thomas Tang” attached as producer even in the “recent” italian DVD release by Freak Video, and all made perfect sense, because that is one of Godfrey Ho many film pseudonyms, stuff like the beloved “Elton Chong”, BUT that credit was just added in the international releases because – as already said – Filmark distributed the thing.

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[EXPRESSO] Metal Slug Awakening iOS/PC | Heavy Gaching Gun

Finally someone decided to show its face globally, with a Metal Slug game that’s actually a run-n-gun shooter and not some tower defense or strategy-lite card thingie, Metal Slug Awakening (previously announced as Metal Slug Code J and available for years in SEA markets), aka the closest thing to a new, proper mainline Metal Slug title we’re gonna get with the new SNK.

In an unsurprising yet fitting fashion, it’s very similar to Contra Returns – also on mobile smartphones – not too surprising since it’s from the same developer, Timi (which also worked on Mega Man Dive X), it has an original storyline about a pharaoh and 4 gems, nothing worth committing to memory, as is the kinda rubbish and arguably random english voice acting.

I think they did a decent job at translating the art style to 3D models, though the new character designs really reek of “chinese gacha shit”, they do.

That aside, gameplay is traditional Metal Slug, with actually quite decent touch controls and some controller support (more for the Steam version), some concessions to modernity and a LOT of concessions to mobile gacha freemium design, from exps books and materials for upgrades, multiple tiers of rarity for everything, mini and normal bosses being more spongy so to incentivate using a weapon/character that inflicts more damage or status effects to certain types of enemies.

It’s not bad and the levels are new, but both level designs and foes dip heavily in nostalgia, so expected to see A LOT of old faces from the series’ long history.

Shame the F2P bullshit add various layers of faux complexity to deal with, and can make the difficulty fluctuate heavily.

It’s worth a try, but you actually wanted a proper Metal Slug 8, this ain’t, nor was ever gonna be.